


Frank Iero's Midnight Society

by gloomboyz



Series: midnight!verse [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Paramore
Genre: Alternate Realities, Elves, M/M, Magic, Monsters, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-01 15:03:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12707361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloomboyz/pseuds/gloomboyz
Summary: Frank Iero, monster researcher extraordinaire, believes in Halloweentown. Kind of.





	Frank Iero's Midnight Society

**Author's Note:**

> i meant to release this on halloween but then it took so much longer so i didn't whoops.
> 
> ps the only reason i included pete and fob at all is because i saw fob in concert while i was writing this lmao it was so amazing and pete came out on stage in a furry mask i hate him.
> 
> (pps i based this entire fic off of a drawing i saw of gerard on tumblr don't @ me)

Frank saw his first monster movie when he was thirteen.

It was his dad’s weekend, and while Frank loved spending time with his dad, that was the last place he wanted to be the weekend after his birthday. Away from all of his friends, his mom, and most importantly, that shiny new Les Paul his mom had gotten him. To combat the teenage moodiness, his dad had offered to take him to the ‘Classic Monster Movie Film Extravaganza’ the local movie theater was hosting in celebration of Halloween. Frank begrudgingly agreed, and yet, pretty immediately, fell in love with _An American Werewolf In London_ the minute it began playing on screen. And after that, _Creature From The Black Lagoon_ , then _Dracula_ , and so on and so forth.

From that moment on, Frank had fallen in love with the concept of monsters; cryptids whose physical forms and ideals just didn’t quite line up with those of the average human. They were so _fascinating_. And Frank would be the first to admit that he sort of wished he was born a blood-sucking vampire, or a ferocious werewolf, rather than a boring old human. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he resigned himself to the fate of remaining a boring old human, but began dedicating practically all of his time to the study of monster legends. Reading both classic and modern tales, watching every monster movie he could get his hands on, and investigating into all the documented cases of monster sightings that were out there.

A few years later, Frank saw the first _Halloweentown_ movie on the Disney Channel. He was half-high, sleep-deprived, and hanging out with his friends when one of them had put it on, saying it was his favorite movie to get high to and that it was “Fuckin’ awesome, man. The spookiest shit you will ever see.” Frank wasn’t quite high enough to find it very entertaining, or scary; it was childish, cheesy, and probably not meant for 16-something-year-olds to be watching, high or not. But it was everything Frank had ever imagined the monster realm - if such a thing were to ever exist - to be. He’d almost completely grown out of that monster hunter extraordinaire phase a few months prior, but in watching that stupid film, it had been brought back in full-force.

Which is where Frank found himself now- Eighteen years old, part-time student, part-time monster hunter, running ‘Iero & Wentz Investigation Agency’ with his best friend, Pete. Pete was just as enthusiastic about monsters as Frank was, and although the two had only known each other for roughly a year, you would think they’d known each other for a lifetime. Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday night (that Frank and Pete weren’t spending practicing with their band) was spent investigating more and more into monster myths, and researching the legitimacy of monsters as a whole. While Frank hadn’t always believed they were real, he’d seen enough evidence to have a change of heart. Along with some minor convincing from Pete.

“So,” Pete sighed, falling onto the old couch in Frank’s basement, “What’s on the agenda today?”

Frank fiddled with his pencil a little more, before scribbling at the top of his notepad the topic for that day’s meeting. “We’re gonna be looking at The Rift again.”

Pete groaned, and Frank threw the notepad at him, along with the pencil, as he walked across the room to look at the corkboard, covered with various pieces of evidence.

“Why do we have to be talking about The Rift again?” Pete sounded annoyed, but he still started writing down all they knew about The Rift on that day’s page. Pete’s handwriting had always been neater, so he was left in charge of notes. Frank sorted through the various books and printed out PDF’s and articles on the desk under the corkboard, looking for the pieces that contained evidence on The Rift.

“Because,” Frank explained, “We’re so close, Pete. You know that, I know that. We’re so close to finding out where it is and how it works.”

The Rift, as Frank and Pete had dubbed it, was a doorway between the human world and the perceived ‘monster world’, like the monster world in _Halloweentown_. Of course, they didn’t know if it was truly real or not, but the both of them, no matter how much Pete liked to deny it, had hoped that it was. So, they spent much of their time researching it, it’s legitimacy, and they were now extremely close to finding out where it was and how to find it.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Frankie.” Pete stood up and walked over to the desk, choosing then instead to sit wherever he could fit on its messy surface, and shifted just a little to face his friend. “Well then,” He said, smiling a little at Frank. “Let’s get started.”

Five hours and countless coffees (provided graciously by Frank’s mother. “God bless Linda Iero”, as Pete liked to say) later, the two boys were just the slightest bit closer to figuring all this Rift business out then they were the day before. Which, in Frank’s book, sure as hell meant something.

“So, to review,” Pete said, looking down at the notebook page, which was now full of hundreds and thousands of words. He pulled up his hair and tied the dreadlocks back with a rubber band from his wrist. “Today we’ve found that The Rift’s source of energy likely comes from magic, as many other things in the monster world most likely do. Therefore, we’ve marked down the ‘Magic Generator’ theory as being pretty likely, though we don’t know what purpose the generator would really serve and how it works. But we’ve gotten rid of the ‘Monster Coalition Generator’ theory, because, well, like I said, it’s just plain stupid.” He said, snapping the book shut, a pleased look on his face. Frank nodded and hummed in agreement, grabbing the notebook from his friend and placing it on the desk.

“I’d say we’ve had a pretty successful day, wouldn’t you?” Frank walked over to the couch, where Pete was sitting again, and looked over at him. Pete shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess.”

The two sat quietly for a few moments, both tired from a full day of school, then hours of theorizing and speculating. Neither one of them made a move to speak, until Frank’s mom came halfway down the steps, and then announced that Pete ought to be getting home.

“Wouldn’t want Deb to be getting worried.” She said, before walking back up the basement stairs. Pete groaned, probably not very willing to move from the otherwise comfy couch.

“See you tomorrow, Petey.” Frank said as the other hitched his backpack on his back and began walking up the stairs, only turning back to salute at Frank.

“See ‘ya, Frankie!” Pete called as soon as he was at the top of the stairs.

Seconds later, Frank heard a “Ow! What was that for, Linda?” and then the exasperated voice of his mother saying “Don’t shout in my house, Peter Lewis!” Frank chuckled, before following in Pete’s footsteps up the stairs.

A few nights later, Frank was, pretty unpleasantly, awoken by a phone call from Pete. It was the weekend, and he was pretty dead tired from a generally tiring week, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep. Well, Frank often wanted nothing more than to sleep, not just on weekends, but those were minor details.

“What the fuck do you want, Wentz?” Frank mumbled blearily into his phone once he had somehow managed to pick it up from his bedside table and hit the answer button, all without opening his eyes.

“Uh,” The worried voice of Pete came from the other end, “I think I found The Rift.”

——

Sneaking out of Frank’s own house had always been easy enough for him; his mom didn’t care where he was going late at night as long as he wasn’t doing drugs or drinking, and as long as she didn’t get a call from the cops asking her to bail him out of jail.

Getting into Pete’s house, though, that was another story.

The Wentz's lived in a large, very heavily gated house in one of the nicer neighborhoods in Frank’s town, with one security guard and many security dogs that, no matter how many times Pete said they were practically harmless, just there for show, and no matter how much Frank loved dogs, still kind of terrified him. Frank knew that there was a broken bar in the fence of the backyard, so getting through that was easy enough. Avoiding the motion-detector lights that lined the back of the Wentz’s property was pretty easy, too, as Frank had been doing it for a while.

Getting to Pete’s third-story attic room, though, that was always the difficult part.

Frank fidgeted a little, hoping that Pete would have the good sense to come and check on his window. It was cold, and Frank had been in such a rush to find out what “I think I found The Rift.” meant that he had neglected to put on a coat or a jacket. But Frank knew Pete, and he also knew that Pete didn’t have the good sense to most things he should have had the good sense to do. He patted the back pockets of his jeans, then the front pockets, looking for his phone. Which, he desperately hoped he’d remembered to bring. He didn’t.

Frank huffed and groaned under his breath, looking around the Wentz’s backyard. He wasn’t sure what he was really looking for, of course - rocks, maybe, to throw at Pete’s window like they were in Romeo and Juliet or something - but the sliding back door suddenly opened, revealing a disgruntled and frizzy-haired Mrs. Wentz.

Frank smiled at her timidly, giving a little wave. “Hi Deb.” He laughed half-heartedly. Mrs. Wentz gave him no reaction.

“Come inside, Frank. Call next time you’re going to try and sneak in my house, okay?”

Frank nodded, and Mrs. Wentz waved him in.

“Thank you Deb.” Frank said as soon as he was inside. Mrs. Wentz shrugged him off.

“Just shut the door.”

Frank jogged upstairs before Mrs. Wentz was even on the first step, and made his way up to Pete’s room, where he was pacing back and forth, biting his nails. At Frank’s arrival, Pete’s gaze shot over to Frank.

“You found The Rift?! The ‘fuck you mean you found The Rift?” Frank whisper shouted, shutting Pete’s bedroom door. He stepped over the various piles of junk and laundry on Pete’s floor, before Pete put his hands on Frank’s shoulders, scaring Frank. Just a bit.

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but…” Pete almost seemed to hesitate, like he was actually concerned Frank was going to find him crazy. But, if anything, Frank was happy, ecstatic, even. If there was a chance that The Rift, somehow, had _actually_ appeared for Pete, and that it was _actually real_ , then, well, that meant that everything Frank and Pete had been working for wasn’t for nothing. And the fact that monsters were real also had to count for something, of course.

“I don’t think you’re crazy, Pete. If anything, this is like, the best thing to ever happen to me, to _us_ , y’know? Kinda proves that everything we’ve been working for is for something, is real.” Frank explained, trying to give Pete a hopeful look. Pete nodded and took his hands off of Frank’s shoulders, tucking his hair behind his ears.

“Okay. So,” Pete walked over to his closet door, his hand on the handle, “You know that mirror I have on the back of the door here?” He asked Frank, who nodded and stepped closer. “Well, I went to go get something in my closet, and-” Pete opened it, revealing the mirror. Both boys looked at it.

“I’m not following.” Frank said, perplexed. It looked like a normal mirror. It was dark in Pete’s room, so maybe that’s why Frank couldn’t see whatever Pete was seeing. Or maybe Pete was just crazy.

“It’s hard to see, I know, but, like, there’s something off about it.” Pete and Frank stood for a moment, both looking at the mirror again. “Oh! Here, look.” Pete walked over to his nightstand, grabbing his phone, before turning his flashlight on and shining it at the mirror.

There was no reflection of the light.

“Whoa.” Frank sighed, leaning in and looking closer. He bent his head to the side, trying to look at it from every possible angle, but no, the reflection of the light was not there. And now that he looked at it closer, the reflections of himself, Pete, and Pete’s room were all very, very foggy and unclear. How had he not noticed that before?

“I know, right? That’s not even the weirdest part.” Pete stepped closer and lifted up the mirror a little- Frank could see that the bottom half had been taken off of the little sticky pads that held it down. “I went to look at it from behind it, ‘cause I thought someone was playing a trick on me, or something. But I looked at it, and-” Frank looked at the back of it as Pete held it up, and his breath caught in is throat.

The glass pane was gone.

“The glass is gone.” Pete repeated Frank’s thoughts.

“But, I, how-” Frank stuttered, probably just as confused as Pete had been when he first found it. He almost reached a hand out to touch it, just almost, but stopped himself. If this was truly The Rift (Frank couldn’t believe the passage to The Rift was in Pete’s mirror, Christ), then him sticking his hand in it might have some pretty dire consequences.

“I don’t know, man. Maybe we should just leave it until morning. You can sleep over here if you want.” Pete sighed, obviously tired. He dropped the mirror and was about to walk over to his bed, before Frank stopped him by grabbing his wrist.

“Let’s go into it.”

Pete stopped - half from Frank stopping him, half from Frank’s words - and turned back around to look at Frank. “What?” He asked, giving Frank a look like he was the crazy one now. Frank turned away from where he was staring at the mirror, and back at Pete.

“It’s like,” Frank started, finally letting go of Pete’s wrist, who snatched it back and rubbed at it a little, “If The Rift were to actually exist, which, we now know it does, if this is anything to go by, it’d be like a doorway, right? We should be able to just go in it.”

Pete looked hesitant, _really hesitant_ , but he sighed and stepped up next to Frank once more.

“Okay, sure, fine. Who’s going first?” He asked.

Frank considered it for a moment, and found that, yeah, okay, he kind of  _really_ wanted to go first. “I will.” He volunteered. Pete laughed and stepped back.

“Be my guest. Weirdo.”

Frank shook his head before stepping just a little closer to the mirror. What if Pete had been right? What if they _both_ were just crazy? Folie à deux, or whatever it was called. For all either of them knew, this was just nothing more than a shared hallucination. Frank hesitated, before sticking his whole hand in the mirror. It went straight through. He looked back at Pete with wide eyes, which Pete returned with a similar expression of surprise. Frank smiled, though, and stuck his foot in, feeling solid ground on the other side.

“Well, this is it, Petey my boy. See you on the other side?” Frank asked when he was already halfway inside the mirror. Or, well, the room on the other side of the mirror, that was.

Pete nodded, and saluted Frank. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Frank nodded, took a deep breath, and went in.

——

The last thing Frank expected on the other side of The Rift was another closet.

“I’ve already come out of the closet once, why do I have to do it again?” He grumbled, stumbling a little before righting his balance. He looked around, although there wasn’t much to see in the dark closet.

Seconds later, Pete emerged from the ornate mirror hanging on the wall of the closet.

“Shit, oh, that was weird.” He said, shivering a little as he too stumbled around a bit, only to be caught and put upright by Frank.

“Welcome to the other side, Petey. Nice, isn’t it?” Frank joked, gesturing widely at the closet. Pete hummed and laughed, righting his hair again. He turned around and looked at the mirror, checking that this one still looked as weird as Pete’s had, which it did.

“Let’s hope The Rift stays open for a while. That, or we can find someone who knows how to get us home. We’ve got exploring to do man. Who’s closet do you think we’re in anyway-?” Pete mumbled, before the closet door was swung open, light flooding in the tiny room, scaring the two boys.

“Keep quiet in here or else I’m closing that doorway in the mirror and leaving you two to find your own way home.” The tall, gangly man on the other side of the door said, a frustrated expression on his face. The two stared at him blankly, before nodding frantically. “Good. I’ll come and get you in a minute.” The man, who seemed a bit calmer now, agreed.

“Mikey? What was that noise?” They heard in the background, all three of their heads shooting in the direction of the noise. The man paled, then looked back at Pete and Frank.

“Don’t. Say. A word.” The man - Mikey - stressed, going to shut the door. Pete and Frank remained quiet for a few seconds, slowly looking towards each other with equally frightened expressions.

“Uh,” Pete stuttered, “Did you see his ears?”

And how could Frank not have? He only saw them in a glance, but peeking through Mikey’s hair, Frank could see his pointed ears. Normal humans didn’t have pointed ears- at least, not to the degree that Mikey had. So that could only mean…

“We did it, Pete. This is the monster world.”

Pete laughed quietly, hiding his mouth behind his hand so he didn’t create too much noise. “Well, yeah. Normal dudes don’t have ears that pointy.”

The wait in the closet wasn’t that long in hindsight, only a few minutes. The two spent their time trying to press their ears against the door to the closet, trying to listen to Mikey and whoever had been calling him earlier’s conversation. They couldn’t hear much, just mutters and mumbles. But, with The Rift still open, they were able to go in and out of the monster world and their world. Pete had even grabbed them jackets at one point (“Never know if we’re gonna get cold.” He reasoned, throwing one of his jackets at Frank’s face). But soon, the door opened again, with Mikey looking down at them with a happy, yet still kind of frustrated expression.

“Um,” He began, holding the door open but still blocking Pete and Frank’s way out, “Hello.”

The two boys both looked at him for a good few moments, not really sure of what to say. But, soon enough, Pete stepped forward, holding out his hand for Mikey to shake, a wide, signature Pete Wentz grin on his face.

“Pete Wentz, monster hunter extraordinaire. This is my colleague, Frank Iero,” He said, gesturing back to Frank, “You are?” He asked Mikey as he shook his hand. Mikey gave them a look like they were crazy.

“‘Monster hunter’?” He asked in a dubious tone, letting go of Pete’s hand.

“Well, not, not ‘hunters’, per say. W-We just like learning about monsters, you know? Unless ‘monster’ is a derogatory term here. In that case, then, well, god, we’re so sorry-” Frank paused, hearing Mikey’s laughter.

“Calm down, dude. It’s fine. We use monster all the time. If anything,  _human_ is the derogatory term around here. C’mon, I’ll explain everything. I’m Mikey, by the way.” Mikey moved away from the door, letting Frank and Pete finally walk out of the closet. He walked over to a desk in the room - which appeared to be a bedroom - and sat down at it, gesturing for the two to come and look at whatever he was trying to show them. Frank peered over Mikey’s shoulder, seeing papers and book covered in writing he couldn’t read. So, to solve this, he asked his first question of what would probably end up being many.

“Why do you speak in English, but don’t write in it?” He asked Mikey, who turned to look back at him, mid-sorting through the stacks of papers on the desk.

“Well, it’s a complicated, convoluted, reason that I don’t really understand myself. So I’m not the person to ask.” He shrugged, going back to his papers. Once he found what he was looking for, he made a small “Aha!” noise, smoothing it down on the surface of the desk. “Here, look.” He said, gesturing to a drawing of what appeared to be something like The Rift in a mirror, as it had been. There was scrawl surrounding it that neither Frank nor Pete could read, but they didn’t really need to read it to get the general gist of what the drawing was trying to convey.

“That’s The Rift, right?” Pete asked quietly, fascinated by the drawing. It was ornate, detailed, and looked like something that came straight out of one of the _Lord Of The Rings_ movies. In fact, the whole _room_ looked like something out of _Lord Of The Rings_ , maybe mixed with more modern things that Pete and Frank were used to, plus what a traditional witch’s hut would look like. And now that Frank thought about it, Mikey too looked like an Elf from _Lord Of The Rings_. Maybe him and Pete were just in a strange alternate reality where _Lord Of The Rings_ was real.

“‘The Rift’?” Mikey laughed. “Is that what you’ve been calling it? We just call it a doorway, really.”

“Who’s us?” Frank asked. The phrasing of that didn’t sound quite right. Mikey shrugged.

“Us, the people who live in this world. Y’know?”

“There are more than, like, two people who believe in this shit?” Pete asked, again expressing exactly what Frank was thinking. It scared him how much him and Pete thought alike sometimes.

“Of course. There’s no ‘believing in it’, it’s reality. We know humans exist. We’ve just never been good at getting them to come over here, or being able to go over there. I’m actually in school studying humans right now. It’s not the same for you?” The fact that Mikey seemed so confused about the fact that in Pete and Frank’s world monsters were regarded as nothing more than a myth, only truly believed in by some, angered Frank in a weird way. Why couldn’t their world be the same? Why couldn’t Pete and Frank’s world believe and know about monsters in the same way people in Mikey’s world knew about humans?

“No, it’s not the same over there for us! That’s so cool, dude. Man, what if it was like that for us, huh Frankie?” Pete seemed much more excited over the fact than Frank was. He supposed it was good someone was excited about it.

“Would’ve made our lives easier then, wouldn't it have?” He reasoned. Yes, it would have made things easier, but it’s not like Frank regretted all the research they had done. He was sure Pete didn’t either.

“Sure would have. Hey Mikey,” Pete then turned to the man sitting at his desk, watching the two’s interaction with curiosity. “So, uh, what are you?” He asked, causing Frank to hit him on the shoulder and harshly whisper “Pete!” at him.

“What? Was that insensitive?” Pete whispered back. Frank’s eyes widened.

“Of course it’s insensitive you idiot! You don’t just go up and ask someone that!” The two stopped their bickering when they heard Mikey struggling to hold in laughter at their conversation.

“What?” They both said at the same time. Mikey shook his head, standing up from his desk. He shifted a little, leaning against the desk.

“You two are so nervous about offending me. Calm down.” He said in a gentle tone, causing the boys to settle.

“Oh.” Pete muttered.

Mikey waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. And to answer your earlier question, I’m an elf. Duh.” He said, pointing at his ears. Frank could have figured that out, he _had_ figured that out, but hearing conformation was comforting. “That’s why I was able to make that doorway in the first place. Magic, and whatnot.”

“Magic?” Frank asked.

“Yup.” Mikey nodded. “Elves and witches are the only ones who can perform magic spells. Anyone can make a potion, but it has to be in your genes to do real, physical magic. Even if we’re not supposed to.” He shrugged. He didn’t seem to care much that he wasn’t supposed to be using magic, apparently.

“Why can’t you use magic?” Pete inquired, looking at Mikey with the most curious expression Frank had ever seen on him. That had to have meant something, but honestly, Frank was too curious to find out more about the whole magic thing to stop and analyze it.

“It’s part of some government ruling. It’s totally possible to open a doorway using magic, but it’s technically illegal to do so. ‘Cause, well,” Mikey hesitated to continue. It made sense, though, he technically  _was_ talking about committing crimes here. “I don’t know, they want us to go back to more traditional ways of living, since not everyone can perform magic. Equality, or something.” He rolled his eyes, obviously frustrated with the way things were. “But nobody listens anyway. Witches and elves perform magic all the time. We just try not to get caught.” His lips quirked, and he tapped the side of his nose. Good to know that body language gestures were shared throughout realities, too.

“Woah. Shit.” Pete said, looking pretty blown away by everything Mikey said. “I wish I could do magic.” He huffed, crossing his arms. That earned a laugh from Mikey.

“No, you really don’t.” He chuckled. “It’s a lot of learning. Been learning magic all my life. I still am.” He then looked over to the large clock on the wall near his bed, squinting a little so he could read the time. “Okay,” He hummed, “You’ve still got an hour until the doorway closes for the night. Anymore questions before I start asking _you_ some?”

Pete looked like he was about to erupt with all the questions he wanted to ask, but Frank beat him to it by saying, “How does the doorway thing work anyway?”

“Well, basically,” Mikey began, clearing his throat, “Mirrors are like doorways in their own right. They show you a face-value reflection of whatever is in front of them. They’re also really easy to manipulate, if you have a little magical help on your side. If done correctly, a mirror can transform into a doorway to wherever you want. The only problem with the only existing spell for literal interdimensional travel is that it has a time limit on it. If you use a mirror too many times as a doorway, or in too quick of a succession, say, using the spell over and over again a certain number of times in a row, it might do some pretty weird warping to reality. Overall, it’s just really dangerous magic to be meddling with. That’s why I waited so long to perform it, ‘cause I wanted to make sure I completely knew what I was doing.” He explained, pushing his glasses up a little bit farther up his nose.

It made sense, for the most part. Of course, the more magical jargon was messing with Frank's head a bit, but he was able to wrap his head around the general concept of what Mikey was trying to say. When he looked over at Pete, though, Pete looked completely fucking lost. As per usual.

“What…?” Pete muttered

Frank shook his head, leaning over to whisper to Pete, “I’ll explain later.”

“Okay, so, what’s-?” Mikey started, only to be cut off by the sound of a voice from the other side of his bedroom door.

“Mikes, you’re talking to yourself again. Everything okay?” The door swung open, revealing a man that had similar features to Mikey, asides from having pointed poking through his shaggy hair, too. But where Mikey was tall and lanky, the man was shorter, stocky with round, soft features. “I…” He paused, seeing Pete and Frank.

“Whoops.” Pete muttered.

And with that, Frank and Pete were hastily shoved back into the closet by Mikey, all the while the other man stood there, a completely perplexed look on his face.

——

“Um,” Gerard blanched. “Who- what- how-?” He said, confused.

“I can explain?” Mikey tried. But Gerard had a feeling he knew what had happened already. When Mikey came to him a few months ago, asking him to draw a diagram of what a doorway to the human world would ‘theoretically’ look like, along with the fact that Mikey could often be found sneaking around, and hiding in his room all day, Gerard could piece together that he’d been up to something. Gerard supported Mikey’s magical escapades, by all means, but when they dipped into the ‘extremely-illegal-like-death-sentence-illegal’ category of crimes, he had to put a stop to it. He was just looking out for his little brother, that was all.

Gerard crossed his arms, quirked an eyebrow, and said, “Explain.”

Mikey’s eyes widened, not expecting _this_ sort of reaction from Gerard. It was borderline angry. And Gerard _never_ got angry. It just wasn’t in his otherwise-gentle nature. “I… Look,” He sighed, “I wanted to open a doorway. You and I both know it’s not possible to open a doorway without magic, no matter how many times those, those _fucks_ that run our terrible government say it can be done!” With each word, Mikey grew more and more angry. Gerard knew how much Mikey disagreed with the way their world was run, and while Gerard disagreed himself, he didn’t want to do anything _that_ illegal.

“Okay, first, I’ll ignore the fact that you swore. You’re angry, I get it. Second, though, I get you don’t like the laws and stuff, and I don’t either, but you can’t just go around committing actual _crimes_ , Mikey! You could get arrested! Or worse! You understand that, don’t you?” Gerard tried reasoning. Although, Mikey didn’t seem to be having any of it.

“Of course I get it, Gerard. But this is worth it. I brought _humans_ here! How cool is that?” Mikey smiled, going to open the closet, where the said two humans were crouching by the door. The one with dreadlocks nearly fell over, from where he’d been pressed up against the door, presumably listening in on Mikey and Gerard’s argument.

“Uh. Hi.” The other one with the piercings said awkwardly, giving the brothers a little wave. Mikey shut the door again (which earned a “Hey!” from one of the two boys, Gerard didn’t see which), and looked at his brother, eyes wide and a happy look on his face.

Gerard sighed, running his hands down his face. It was late, and he was too tired to deal with this. “Look, I’m not looking for an argument here, Mikey. I’m just trying to protect you, okay? I don’t want to see you get in trouble that you won’t be able to get out of.” He said quietly, brushing his hair away from his face. Mikey deflated, pushing away his glasses so he could rub at his face, nodding.

“I know. I know, Gerard. I promise, I know what I’m doing here. I wouldn’t have opened a doorway if I didn’t, you know that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Gerard hummed. “You’re smart, I trust you with this.”

A grin grew on Mikey’s face as he looked at his brother. “Yeah?”

Gerard nodded. “Yeah, of course. Now, get those two out of here. There’s a timestamp on the whole doorway spell, right?” He said as he began leaving Mikey’s room, set on going to bed after all of this. Mikey nodded excitedly, giving his brother a small smile and a hummed “Goodnight!” as Gerard left, shutting the door and chuckling.

He walked over to the closet and opened the door once more. And, again, Pete nearly fell from leaning against the door. Both boys had guilty looks on their faces, probably from listening in on a conversation they weren’t supposed to hear, but Mikey waved them off, stepping into the tight space with them.

“Look,” He said, looking over at the clock again, then gesturing back at the mirror, “The doorway only stays open for an hour at a time. It works best from midnight to one am, though. Tomorrow night, I’ll cast the spell again, okay? Be here by midnight, sharp, and I’ll be there to come and get you this time. We can talk more about our respective worlds, and whatnot. Got it?” Mikey explained.

Both boys nodded, and Mikey could see that Frank was struggling to hide a grin. Man, he was  _really_ excited about this. Mikey had to admit, though, that he was too.

“Got it. See you tomorrow, Mikey.” Frank said, before stepping through the mirror. Pete stayed back, though, for a few moments, giving Mikey a strange look.

“What?” Mikey said to him. Pete shook his head, though, gave Mikey a wave and a sleepy grin, and stepped through the mirror. Maybe he was just tired.

And now that Mikey thought about it, he was exhausted as well.

“God, what have I gotten myself into?” He muttered to himself, performing the magic necessary to close the doorway, before stumbling over to his bed, turning off the lights in the room with a flick of his wrist.

——

The walk back to Frank’s house was the most excruciating thing he had ever done. He should have just talked to Mikey about it, convinced him to let him stay in that other, magical world. Now that he was back in his own reality, Frank realized how boring everything was, how plain it was compared to the other reality. And he hadn’t even been over there for an hour.

Maybe he should’ve taken up Pete’s offer to sleep over at his house.

Frank stumbled through the front door of his house, trying to keep quiet so he didn’t wake his mom up. He trudged his way up the stairs and into his room, stripping off his clothes before falling into his bed. His phone sat mockingly on his nightstand, where he had left it before rushing off to Pete’s house. He should have brought it to take pictures or notes or something. Whatever. He could write down whatever they had learned in the morning.

The last thing Frank thought about, pretty randomly, might he add, was the other elf that had been there, Mikey’s brother, presumably. Gerard, had his name been?

Frank thought that Gerard was a nice name.

The next morning, after Pete had been texted, arrived, and fed pancakes by Mrs. Iero, the two were in Frank’s basement again, trying to piece together all the information they had learned from Mikey the night before and attempting to write it down. They, truthfully, could only remember bits and pieces, but really, they ended up having more information than they ever had in their months of studying The Rift. Who knew what else they would be able to learn about the monster world as a whole now?

Pete, in a weird way, seemed strangely distracted the entire time. Every time Frank would leave him alone for more than a few seconds, he’d find Pete zoning out, not paying attention to what they’d been talking about before at all.

“Pete!” Frank said, snapping his fingers in front of Pete’s face after he had zoned out. Again.

“Wha-? Huh?” He said, shaking his head. Frank laughed and put down the notebook he’d been using, after being unsuccessful in remembering anything else to write down.

“What’s up with you today? Didn’t get enough sleep?” Frank asked, poking Pete with his pencil. He laughed and got up from the couch, going over to the desk to put the pencil away in the overstuffed pencil holder.

“Nah, too busy off in monster land. You?”

“Same.” Frank nodded, going to stand next to Pete. “Wanna go play video games now?”

“Hell yeah. I’m done with trying to remember shit.”

After Pete had left for the afternoon, and the two of them had agreed to meet up at Pete’s house later for a ‘sleepover’ (“Don’t put it in quotes like that, man.” Frank had said when Pete had said it with finger quotes. “Makes it sound like we’re gonna film a porno.”), Frank felt there was nothing left for him to distract him from the jitters he had in anticipation for that night’s visit. Now that he thought about it, there was something different to the air in his world. He couldn’t describe it, it was just a slight change, nothing more than a vibe, really. Whatever it was, though, Frank had to say, that he liked the vibe over in the monster world better.

Seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours, and the hours felt like days to Frank before he was finally able to pack up his stuff and kiss his mom goodbye, as he went off to Pete’s house. Only four hours and twenty eight minutes to go until midnight.

Pete pete proved to be a) very good at distracting Frank with promises of pizza (which, thankfully, Pete delivered on), and b) just as antsy as Frank to go back to the other world. “I kinda wish we could do magic now.” Pete grumbled at one point, pitifully munching on a slice of pizza. Frank could do nothing more than pat him on the back consolingly, and agree.

And finally, midnight struck.

By eleven fifty-nine, Pete and Frank had been (not-so) patiently waiting by the mirror, waiting for some sort of sign that the spell had been cast on it; a weird warping of it, maybe some weird static effect or something, neither of them knew what it would look like. But when the mirror began changing, it was nothing like either of them would expect. It looked normal at first, but there was soon a weird buzzing noise, which, after they thought about it, sounded like it was coming from the mirror.

“How did you not hear that last night?” Frank questioned dubiously, seriously doubting his best friend’s intelligence at this point. Pete just shrugged.

After a few moments, the view in the mirror shifted with time, and like last night, it was the same sort of warped, fuzzy image the two had seen. Before either one of them could step through, though, a hand shot out of it, making a grabby gesture, presumably for one of them to come through. They gave each other a questioning look.

“You think that’s Mikey?” Pete whispered, as if Mikey could hear them from the other side. Well, maybe he could. Frank didn’t know.

“C’mon, you two, we’ve only got an hour here.” Mikey said, poking his head - just his head, and, well, his arm - through the mirror. He made the grabby gesture once more. Pete shrugged, grabbed Mikey’s hand, and was pulled through the mirror. Frank stood there for a few moments, considering everything that had happened in the past two nights now. It was all really crazy. And if he and Pete were to ever talk about this whole ‘actual doorways to different realms and also the other realm they travel to is full of monsters’ thing, well, they’d either be laughed off, or worse.

Frank sighed, remembered to check his pockets for his phone this time, and stepped through.

Walking through The Rift was just as jarring and strange-feeling as the first time, and Frank had to take a second to adjust to being in a new reality. But the closet door was open this time, and neither Pete nor Mikey were anywhere to be seen, so Frank walked out of the closet and into Mikey’s room, where him and Pete were sitting on his bed, looking at some book that Frank couldn’t read the cover of.

“Great, I’m out of the closet, again. Whoop-dee-doo.” He sighed, earning the gazes of Pete and Mikey.

“What?” Mikey said, confused.

Pete waved him off. “Don’t worry about it.”

Mikey blinked a few times, before shrugging “Nice of you to join us though, Frank.” He smiled, putting down the book. He stood up, gesturing for Frank to sit where he had been sitting. He strode over to his desk, putting the book down and instead picking up a different one. Again, Frank couldn’t read the cover of it. He handed the book over to Pete and Frank, who both reached for it at the same time. Pete, though, tugged at it just a little harder than Frank, and flipped it over in his hands.

“What’s it about?” Frank asked, looking at the cover with Pete, who seemed just as confused. But maybe that was just because that was Pete’s normal state. Frank could never tell.

“That,” Mikey said, pointing down at the book, “Is for you two to keep. We can read and write perfect, hm, Engish, is it called?”

“English.” Frank corrected.

“Right, English. We over here can read and write it perfectly, we just choose not to use it, which makes if very hard for you two to understand any of the books I’m going to need you to read if you want to understand anything about our world. So, what I’m proposing is, you learn how to read our written language.”

Both boys looked from the cover of the book, to Mikey, back at the cover of the book, extremely confused. Pete even raised his hand, like they were actually in a classroom or something.

Fuck, they had school tomorrow.

“Pete…?” Mikey said, nearly as confused as the two in front of him, pointing at Pete’s raised hand. He slowly lowered his hand, looked at the book cover one last time, and asked his question.

“Uh, how?” He asked.

Mikey smiled and nodded, stepping forward to open the cover of the book. “Here.” He said, pointing at a handwritten graph hastily glued to the inside of the cover. “Our written language is basically just code for English written language. So, the letters can be directly translated, as can the words. All I’m asking here is for you to study this chart, and memorize it. Easy as that.”

Frank pondered it, then nodded. That could be easy enough. Plus, learning an _actual monster language_ was fascinating enough for Frank all on it’s own.

“Don’t worry, Pete, I’ll help you through it.” Frank said, bumping his shoulder against Pete’s.

“And don’t think I won’t be helping you two if you need it. It’d be just plain cruel if I didn’t.” Mikey added.

Then, there was a knock on Mikey’s bedroom door, interrupting the boys.

“Can I come in?” Came the voice from the other side of it, timidly.

“Uh,” Mikey said, “Sure?”

The door creaked open slowly at first, Gerard peeking his head through just a little, before it opened all the way, and he stood there, rubbing at his arm. “I thought-” He paused, clearing his throat, as he had been quiet when first speaking. “I thought I could help.” He suggested, his lips quirked in a timid little smile. It was cute, Frank thought blankly.

Mikey looked at him with a surprised stare, but nodded. “Of course.” He went over to his desk again, sorting through the piles of books and papers on his desk. He picked out a book, and handed it to Gerard. “Here, you take this, and you and Frank can go to your room. You can read it to him, or something. Just answers questions if he has them.” Mikey explained. He seemed to be rushing, suddenly. Frank thought it was weird, and when he looked up over at Gerard, he could see that he was confused too. But when he looked over at Pete, he was blushing. Huh.

“Oh, uh, alright then.” Gerard stuttered.

“Good. Well, um, Pete and I, we have a conversation to finish! Yes. That.”

Frank looked back over at Pete, who, at this point, was straight-up refusing to look at anything but Mikey’s pillow.

“Sure…” Gerard sounded as dubious about the situation as Frank felt. “Okay, then. Frank?” He asked, causing Frank to look up at him, wide eyes and all. “You coming?” Frank nodded, standing up from the bed, and followed Gerard out of the room.

As they walked down the hall and eventually down the stairs, Frank looked at the walls of Gerard and Mikey’s house. Pictures of all kinds lined the walls; pictures of Mikey and Gerard as kids, pictures of what Frank figured were their parents, and lots of other people. None of them human. Some looked to be werewolves, some probably vampires, a few ghosts, maybe a few witches, and other creatures that Frank wasn’t able to identify. And although the pictures looked rather old fashioned - not even half of them were in color - most of them moved like tiny videos, similar to how pictures in the _Harry Potter_ movies moved around. It was positively cool.

“Gosh, those baby pictures are so embarrassing. I really need my own place.” Gerard sighed, looking at one of the moving pictures of what Frank now knew as a baby picture of Gerard.

“I think it’s cute.” Frank laughed. Gerard huffed and rolled his eyes, but laughed too.

“Come on. My room’s downstairs.” He said, gesturing for Frank to follow him.

Gerard’s room was dark, but he quickly snapped his fingers, and the several hanging and table lights around the room illuminated. His room was decorated similar to Mikey’s, with the addition of paint jars, canvases, paint brushes, pencils, sketchpads, plus many more art tools, littered around the room. And on the farthest wall opposite of the stairs Frank still stood on, he could see a huge, swirling mural, filled with colors Frank didn’t even know existed. And as he studied it closer, he could see the paint continually swirling. He didn’t know what it was of, but it was incredible.

“Did you paint this?” He asked, walking over to the mural and almost touching it, before stopping himself. He didn’t want to mess it up.

“Yeah. You like it?” Gerard said timidly, stepping over next to Frank, looking at the wall too.

“It’s incredible. But… I thought Mikey said magic was illegal.”

“Oh, it is.” Gerard hummed, “But lesser forms are less illegal, you know? What I did to make the colors in the painting move, how I turned on the lights and stuff, and how we make the pictures move, that’s all really basic magic. If anything, we’d only be fined for it. But the things Mikey does, like opening doorways to alternate worlds, well, that’s a whole new level of illegal.”

Frank didn’t quite understand how certain spells and such were only so illegal while others were moreso, but he didn’t really want to go into a whole conversation about monster politics (even though he probably would end up doing so some other time), so he didn’t push it.

"So, what do you want to know?” Gerard asked, walking over to his desk and setting the book Mikey had given him down. The book didn’t get lost so easily amongst other books on Gerard’s desk, as there were very few. It was moreso cluttered with paints and papers and other drawing materials. Gerard probably really liked to draw.

“Do you like art?” Frank settled on asking. Gerard was quiet for a few seconds, and when Frank looked back at him, he looked completely taken aback. “What?” Frank asked.

“Nothing! It’s nothing, I just- I expected you to want to know more about this world, rather than just me. Mikey said you and Pete were ‘monster researchers extraordinaire’, or something like that.” He laughed, messing with his hair a little.

Frank shrugged. Sure, it was true that he wanted to learn everything there was to learn about this world. But, right now, he just wanted to know more about Gerard.

“I do, but, I don’t know. I would rather learn more about you right now.”

——

“-And then the fucking _bitch_ had the  _audacity_ to claim that the baby wasn’t really her’s and-“ Frank paused, seeing the surprised, slightly confused, and very wide-eyed look Gerard was giving him as he ranted about the soap operas his mother and him watched together. “I’m literally boring you to death here, aren’t I?” He sighed. God, he probably made a huge asshole of himself.

“Oh! No, no, it’s not that, I just-“ Gerard stuttered, shaking himself out of the little trance Frank had put him in. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone swear that much in my entire life. Or talk about television so passionately.”

That made sense, Frank thought, but Gerard was probably just saying that to make Frank feel better about himself.

“What is it with you guys and swearing, anyway?” Frank asked, remembering last night and how Gerard had specifically _excused_ Mikey after he swore.

Gerard seemed confused, like he legitimately didn’t know what Frank was going on about. Maybe he didn’t. Cultural differences were kind of a bitch, apparently.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Frank sighed, “Why are you so shocked that I’m cursing? And last night, you excused Mikey for cursing. Not that I was listening, of course.” He laughed. Gerard rolled his eyes, and shifted a little, from where him and Frank were sitting on his bedroom floor. Well, laying might have been the more appropriate term, as Frank was half-slouched against Gerard’s bed, and Gerard was pretty much doing the same as Frank, but upside down. It was strangely comfortable. Physically, yes, but between them, well, Frank wouldn’t often sit with people like this the first time meeting them.

“I guess it’s just a cultural thing, then. No one here swears very often. It’s considered really rude.”

“It’s rude for us too, but, like, it’s not  _that_ frowned upon.” Frank muttered, frowning. Gerard began laughing a little, hiding his mouth behind his hand. “What?” Frank asked, hearing his laugh. It was cute. Was everything Gerard did cute?

“Nothing, it’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He paused, thinking. “But, yes, it’s really frowned upon here. Like, extremely so. We just don’t have any need to do it, I guess.” He shrugged.

“But, like, it’s great for expressing yourself! Haven’t you ever swore a bunch when you were angry, and then felt so much better afterwards? It’s the best feeling ever, I swear.”

“Can’t say I have, Frank.”

And, oh, Frank was  _not_ having that. He stood up, making Gerard jump a little, and put his hands on his hips. “Up.” He said to Gerard, trying to give the best serious face he could. It seemed to have worked, because Gerard scrambled up, honestly looking a little scared. Frank felt a little bad, but they had work to do here. “Now,” He said, once Gerard was standing upright in front of him. “What makes you super angry?”

Gerard’s eyebrows furrowed, considering the question. “Um, I don’t know?” He said in a tiny voice, brushing his hair out of his face.

“Aw, c’mon, there’s gotta be something that gets you riled up!  _Think._ ” Frank stressed.

“I don’t know, honestly. I’m not an angry person.”

Frank rolled his eyes. This might take longer than he anticipated it would. “Okay, take me for example. You know what gets me super angry?”

“Um. What?”

“Politics. I hate ‘em. Seriously, the clowns that run the human government? They’re absolute idiots. And then, oh _god_ , I have this one uncle that, man, he’s just the biggest asshat. Super racist. It’s terrible, and whenever he comes over, god, I wanna, like, punch his fuckin’ face in. It’s crazy.” Frank ranted, getting a little too caught up in what he was saying. And, unfortunately, he didn’t see the surprised look on Gerard’s face until after he was done.

“That was… something.” Gerard said. It seemed, though, that he just didn’t know what else to say.

“Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I got a little caught up.” Frank apologized, rubbing the back of his neck. “But that’s not the point. Now, I want you to do the same. Just, just let it all out. Go on a rant.” He encouraged, sitting back on Gerard’s bed as the latter stood in front of him, still looking like he was way out of his comfort zone.

“Frank, I don’t know- I-“ He stuttered, before going quiet. Suddenly, it seemed, his entire mood shifted. “You know what makes me really angry?” He said, quietly. And, hell yes, this was exactly what Frank was looking for.

“Hm?” He hummed happily, putting his head in his hands.

“The art industry. The only reason I don’t have enough money to move out of my parents house is because I can’t earn enough money from my art. I try my hardest, Frank, to sell my stuff, to get my name out there, but it’s so _hard_. It’s impossible to get a normal job with an art degree, and it’s not like I want one anyway. It’s just so, so,  _fucking frustrating_ _!_ ” He shouted, growing progressively angry.

And the only thought Frank had while watching Gerard continue to go off about how frustrating it was being an artist in his society was how hot Gerard looked when angry. Frank pushed the thought to the back of his head. That was another problem for another time. He pulled out his phone, checking the time; it was nearing one am.

“-Plus, it’s not like I could really even go back to get another degree at this point, I don’t even have enough fucking money for  _that_ and- Wait, what’s that?” Gerard asked, pointing at Frank’s phone. He looked at Gerard and then back at the device, turning it over in his hand.

“This? It’s my phone.”

“Phones don’t look like that.” And once again, Gerard looked very confused. Frank waved him off, beginning to stand up.

“We can talk about it tomorrow. I gotta go, now. Loved the anger, though. Good job.” He smiled, going up Gerard’s steps backwards. Gerard quirked an eyebrow, smirking as well.

“You’re gonna trip, Frank.” He said matter-of-factly.

“I’m not going to trip,  _Gerard_.” He stressed, before tripping a few seconds later. Gerard giggled -  _actually fucking giggled_ , holy shit - and walked over, pulling Frank up. “Alright, alright, you were right.” Frank grumbled, messing with his hair.

“Remember that next time you try to prove me wrong on something.” Gerard said. He began walking up the stairs, Frank still in tow. Okay, holy shit, Gerard was still holding onto his hand. This was getting to be a bit much.

But the moment was soon totally ruined, because when he and Gerard walked into Mikey’s room, Mikey and Pete were making out.

“Okay then!” Frank shouted, immediately shutting the door the minute he opened it.

“What? What!” Gerard shouted back, going to open the door again. A few seconds later, Gerard shut the door as well, wide eyed and looking a little petrified. “Definitely something on the list of things I never needed to see.”

Frank put his hand on Gerard’s shoulder, patting comfortingly. “It’s moments like these that I’m glad I don’t have a brother.”

Gerard batted his hand away as the door opened once more, revealing a guilty-looking Mikey.

“Sorry.” He said, opening the door wider to let Frank and Gerard in. They walked in, to where Pete was already nowhere to be found.

“Well, it truly has been a blast, pals, but I think I have a Peter to go yell at for making out with a dude he just met. No offense, Mikey.” Frank said, already starting to step through the mirror. Mikey shrugged.

“None taken.”

Before Frank could go through the mirror completely, Gerard stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Yeah?” He asked. Gerard froze, almost like he didn’t expect to make it this far, or something. Frank couldn’t say he didn’t know the feeling.

“I- It’s just- Um- Here.” He said, shoving a paper into Frank’s hand, before taking his hand away from Frank’s arm. Frank didn’t have time to unravel it and look at the paper before Mikey was shoving him through the mirror completely, with one last “C’mon! It’s almost one am!”

When he emerged from the other side, Pete was already passed out on his bed. Leave it to none other than Pete Wentz to go from making out with a guy, to falling asleep in less than ten minutes. But Frank was tired too, so he understood completely. Soon after, he too fell asleep on the spare mattress they always kept in Pete’s closet that they had pulled out earlier in the day, the paper from Gerard still wadded up tightly in his palm.

——

The one thing Frank hated waking up to was Pete peering over him, trying to grab at his hand.

He swatted at Pete after gaining a bit more conscious, batting at him and yelling, “What the fuck?” Pete jumped back a few feet, still holding onto a little ball of paper. “What’s that?” Frank asked, pointing to it.

Pete smirked and quirked an eyebrow looking back down at it. “I dunno, Frankie,” He held it up so that Frank could see it, “You tell me.”

It was a drawing of Frank. A drawing that  _Gerard_ had done.

“Shit! Gimme that!” He all but shouted, making grabby hands and practically lunging at Pete, who, by now, was laughing manically and trying to shimmy away from Frank.

“Ooh-ooh! Frankie’s got a cru-ush! A crush who draws him too!” Pete sang-songed, keeping the paper as far out of reach as he possibly could. Frank did _not_ have a crush, thank you very much. He wasn’t a Pete; he didn’t develop crushes and want to make out with people he literally just met. He just thought Gerard was kinda cute. And maybe a little bit hot. And maybe Frank had had a dream about someone that looked eerily like Gerard who gave Frank the best head he’d ever had. But Pete didn’t have to know that.

“Do not! You literally can’t even prove that.” He huffed, leaning back after he realized that Pete wasn’t going to give it back. By now, Pete’s face was red, and he looked like he was about to start crying he was laughing so hard.

“Aw man, it’s all over your face, fucker.” He wheezed, finally, throwing the paper back into Frank’s lap. “Plus, people don’t just draw pictures of other people and then give them to them. He likes you too, man.” He nudged Frank’s shoulder. Frank looked away, not wanting Pete to see the blush spreading across his face.

“He doesn’t. I just said I liked his art, so I guess he drew me. I dunno. It doesn’t mean anything.” He shrugged, looking down at the drawing. It was nothing short of beautiful, and that was never a term Frank used to describe himself; the drawing was amazingly detailed, with hard, fast pencil strokes and bold lines. Somehow, it seemed that Gerard was able to capture even the tiniest details about Frank. The roundness of his eyes, the scar between his eyebrows, the exact way his hair curled around his chin and ears, in desperate need of a haircut.

Pete gave him an incredulous look. “Uh-huh. Sure.” He stood up, going to sift through his closet, “C’mon, we’ve gotta go to school today. Unfortunately.”

School, compared to the past two days, was exceptionally boring. Again, Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that his world, the one he lived in, had a different feeling in it, a different vibe in the air, than the vibe in the monster world. And this feeling in Frank’s world, in comparison, felt almost suffocating. He didn’t know what that feeling meant, didn’t know what many of the feelings related to the monster world meant, and truthfully, it made his head hurt to think about. But it was better than paying attention to school, so it occupied Frank’s thoughts for most of the day.

Pete and Frank visited Gerard and Mikey again that night, and the night after, and the night after that, and for the rest of the nights that week. More often than not, Mikey shoved Gerard and Frank out of his room the minute they were all there, supposedly ‘teaching Pete more about the monster world’. Both Gerard and Frank knew that couldn’t be farther from the truth, but neither one of them liked to think about it very much. Especially Gerard.

But neither of them were complaining about getting to spend more time together. Gerard was not only cute and maybe-sometimes hot, but he had an amazing personality. Always all smiles and bright laughter and creative tangents that Frank didn’t even know the mind could come up with. Gerard loved talking, going on tangents about movies and art and music and how last week his friend Brendon had stolen his one good leather jacket because it was ‘the comfiest thing Brendon had ever worn’ (and Frank had kind of wanted to test that theory for himself, but he didn’t say that out loud), but it was okay because Gerard loved Brendon more than anything, as he loved all of his close friends. Frank wanted to ask if he counted as one of Gerard’s close friends that he loved more than anything, but before he could, Gerard had gone quiet, nudged his shoulder as they sat on his floor again, and whisper-spoke, “You too, Frankie.” At some point during the week, Gerard had taken to almost exclusively calling Frank ‘Frankie’, and he was _so_ not objecting. Frank also wasn’t objecting to Gerard’s extensive talking in the slightest. The way his face lit up when he talked about people or things he loved, and how his voice got more nasally and grew in pitch, it almost made Frank’s heart clench with how amazing Gerard was.

And Gerard wasn’t just a good talker, he was also an incredible listener. He loved hearing Frank talk about the human world, and was more curious about it than Frank could have ever imagined, but he also was very good at listening to Frank ranting about even the stupidest of shit; his mom refusing to let him get a dog while he still lived under her roof (which had branched off into a conversation about how pets were so not a thing in the monster world. “You keep _animals_ as like, what, playthings?” Gerard had asked incredulously, completely not believing what he was hearing. “No, not playthings,” Frank had rolled his eyes, “More like companions. Friends.”), his dad’s new girlfriend, who Frank could blatantly tell was just with his dad for money, or some shit, how college apprehensions were beginning to, pretty literally, smother Frank. Sometimes Frank just needed to to vent, to let out his fears and his stressors and all those fun things, but other times he came to Gerard for advice, and, not-so-surprisingly, Gerard was amazing at giving advice, too. He was older than Frank, had more life experience, and while they were from two completely different worlds with different customs, much of the advice was some of the most helpful shit Frank had ever heard.

But, other times, Frank talked about the things he loved, rather than the things he hated.

One night, the conversation had ventured off into Frank’s love of music. It was his life, safe to say. The little band between him, Pete, and a few of their friends, was everything to Frank, no matter how much he loved studying monsters and the paranormal. Gerard, it seemed shared that love, stating once or twice that music had ‘saved his life’. Frank didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t push Gerard to explain. Instead, he had started talking about him and Pete’s band, to which Gerard had positively lit up at, once more. “You’re in a band? Oh, gosh, that’s so cool.” He had looked simply amazed, which made Frank nearly burst into tears. God, he liked Gerard so much.

Frank didn’t realize that, yeah, he had a major crush on Gerard, until later that same night, when he was already half asleep.

——

Facing Gerard on the next visit was no easy task for Frank. Luckily, Pete and Mikey had decided that they’d had enough sex (or whatever the fuck they’d been doing behind closed doors), and they ended up spending the hour all together, watching a movie. The Way’s tv, compared to the ones in the human world, was scarily primitive. Pete nearly had a fit when he first saw it, and Frank wasn’t even sure it could play movies at all. But Mikey had pulled out a weird box-shaped thing that looked similar to a VHS tape, shoved it in a weird device that looked similar to a VHS player, and they were then watching a movie about humans, it appeared. It was like the monster world equivalent of a monster movie; same premises as the typical monster movies, but with humans as the antagonists instead of monsters.

“You know, I would typically take offence to this, but this is exactly how monsters are portrayed in monster movies back in our world.” Pete said. Mikey snickered and nuzzled his head farther into Pete’s neck- the two were cuddling on the loveseat opposite of the couch Frank and Gerard were sitting on, and honestly, it was disgustingly cute.

At some point, Frank had fallen asleep. All of the ‘staying-up-until-one-am-to-travel-to-an-alternate-dimension’ escapades were catching up to Frank, and he, more often than not, found himself falling asleep in the middle of class, or immediately when he got home, only to be called by Pete telling him to come over. Now was similar, only he was being awoken by Gerard, and was being gently nudged at him rather than awoken by an annoyingly loud ringtone. Frank sat up, and noticed he had been sleeping on Gerard’s shoulder.

“Oh, god, I’m sorry. I probably drooled all over you.” He avoided looking at Gerard, just so Gerard didn’t have to see the horrible blush that overtook his face. Suddenly, Gerard was laughing that pretty laugh of his (that, honestly, was one of Frank’s favorite things at that point), and helped Frank up from the couch.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I don’t mind a little drool.” He rolled his eyes.

The next day was largely as it had been before. There was no movie this time, and Gerard insisted that they spend the night down in his room (Pete had been pretty tripped out by the mural on Gerard’s back wall. Today, it appeared to be a rather beautiful drawing of one of the scenes from last night’s movie), and all was pretty much the same as it had been for the past few weeks.

Except, of course, when there was tapping on the tiny basement window.

The two brothers immediately looked at each other, muttering “Shoot” at the same time, and there was another tap. Along with the disembodied voice of someone outside saying “Guys? You down there? Or do I have to throw rocks at Mikey’s window again?”

“Uh,” Mikey called out, as Gerard scrambled around, trying to find space in his room to hide Pete and Frank. He, unfortunately, didn’t have a closet in his room, so that was out of the question. “Hang on a second!”

“C’mon! Over here!” Gerard said, interrupting the muffled muttering of words Frank couldn’t understand that he’d been doing for a few seconds. Suddenly, the painting shimmered a bit, and Gerard made one final gesture, before the painting transformed, looking more like a reflective pond than a painting. Frank and Pete looked at each other utterly confused, before Gerard grabbed Frank’s wrist, pulling him over to the painting. “Go in! Hurry up!”

“Go in? What!?” Pete yelled. Frank was inclined to agree.

“Just, it’s like the doorways! Just hop into it, and try not to look conspicuous, _please._ ” Gerard begged, trying to shove Frank into it. Frank looked from Gerard, to the painting, back to Gerard one last time, before saying “Fuck it” and hopping in.

And suddenly, and Frank never thought he would say this, he was inside of the painting.

Pete followed shortly after, and the two were immediately hit with the feeling of being a little bit crushed. They _were_ now nothing more than 2-d images on a wall, though, so it kind of made sense. Well, nothing about the entire situation made much sense, but that made the most sense out of everything that had happened.

“Wait,” Pete whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Look.”

Frank then turned to look forward, Gerard’s room in front of him looking kind of foggy and unclear, like him and Pete were behind a glass wall or something. But, he could make out the figures of Gerard and Mikey, plus a third, mystery person who was sliding through the window. The three talked to each other for a few moments, the words sounding too muddled for Frank to really make out, before the stranger began walking towards the painting. Frank felt himself freeze. _Don’t look conspicuous, don’t look conspicuous._

The stranger was now close enough for Frank to make out basic features; he was tall, with a seriously impressive head of hair. He was also able to make out the words he was saying.

“Hey, are those humans?” The stranger asked, looking suspiciously at Frank and Pete specifically. Frank felt himself gulp.

Gerard scrambled up then next to the stranger, grabbing onto his arm, looking like he wanted to pull him away.

“Yeah! Me and Mikes watched a human movie last night, and I got inspired. Cool, right?” Gerard said. Though, with the concerned look, he blatantly looked like he was lying. Frank just hoped the stranger wasn’t able to pick up on shit like that. He looked at Gerard, and, thankfully, shrugged, smiling.

“Looks awesome. But all your stuff does, you know that.”

Even through the fog in front of him, Frank could see Gerard blushing at the stranger’s words, and suddenly, he felt a violent sense of jealousy bubbling up in the pit of his belly.

Gerard, finally, was able to pull the stranger away from the drawing, and instead, he, the stranger, and Mikey all went over to Gerard’s bed, where they sat on the floor at the foot of it, the stranger pulling something out of the backpack Frank didn’t notice he’d been wearing until then. How he was able to fit through that tiny window with that huge backpack, that Frank could even see through the blurry wall in front of him.

But suddenly, there was a tugging at Frank’s entire being, a pull that he had literally never felt in his life. And then him and Pete were falling onto the ground.

Gerard’s dirty clothes luckily cushioned the fall, so that part wasn’t all that bad. But when Frank heard dead silence in the room, no noise coming from even Gerard or Mikey or, for christ’s sake _Pete_ , he panicked. Just a little. Scrambling up, Frank looked like a deer in headlights, glancing from Mikey to Gerard to the stranger and finally to Pete, who was doing something similar. And the stranger, well the stranger was staring at Frank and Pete with pure shock and surprise. Curse monsters for being able to identify humans nearly immediately after seeing them.

“Those weren’t just paintings. What?” The stranger muttered, inching closer to Pete and Frank, who inched closer to Mikey and Gerard, respectively.

“Oh, c’mon Ray, magic is a thing. Duh.” Mikey finally sighed, pushing his glasses up his nose with his pointer finger. At least the stranger finally had a name.

“Well, yeah, okay, I know _that_.” Ray laughed, “But those are humans! How did that even happen?” For the most part, he seemed rather excited at the prospect of _real actual humans_ being in the Way’s basement, of all families. And that, admittedly, made Frank feel a little better about the situation.

“Mikey opened a doorway in his mirror. He has been for the past couple weeks. And these two have been hopping through it.” Gerard shrugged, sitting back down on his floor.

“Whoa. That’s like, really illegal, right?”

Mikey nodded. “Yup.”

“Cool.” Ray said, totally in awe. He walked over to Pete and Frank, who, for the most part, were pretty calm about everything happening. Well, Pete still looked like he might throw up, but if everyone else was cool about the situation, then Frank might as well be too. “Hey. I’m Ray. Friend of those two idiot criminals.” He smiled.

“Hey!’ Gerard exclaimed from the floor, crossing his arms, “I haven’t done anything illegal!”

“Yet.” Mikey muttered under his breath, earning a punch in the shins from his brother.

Ray rolled his eyes, like he expected this behaviour from the two of them. Which, honestly, he probably did. Frank couldn’t help but hold in a laugh, as Pete still looked on edge with the whole situation.

Frank held out his hand for Ray to shake, and smiled. “Frank. That’s Pete. He’s a little wigged out by this.” He introduced for himself at Pete.

“Ah, don’t worry about it, man. Promise, I’m not gonna turn you guys over. Couldn’t even imagine turning these two in, believe me. I love them like brothers.” He smiled warmly, turning to Pete, who nodded his head and shook Ray’s hand as well.

“Well, I believe we were in the middle of a game of Dungeons and Dragons. You two wanna join?” Mikey interrupted, sitting on the floor with Gerard, who was already in the middle of setting up the board once more.

“You guys have Dungeons and Dragons over here too?!” Pete asked surprisedly, sitting down quickly, excited at the prospect.

——

The one thing Frank and Pete had never done was spend the night at Gerard and Mikey’s house. It had been proposed a few times; once by Pete, once by Mikey (who thought it was kind of a bad idea, but was so desperate to spend more time with Pete that he was resorting to go to desperate measures), and maybe a few times by Gerard. The only one who saw what a truly bad idea it was was Frank. Sure, the brothers’ parents hadn’t caught them yet (thank god for them sleeping like literal rocks), but if Frank and Pete were going to spend literally twenty four hours over in the monster world, it might get a little hard to hide. Plus, Frank wasn’t sure he’d be able to spend twenty four hours around Gerard without having an episode of spontaneous combustion caused by liking someone _that much_.

But it seemed like no one else aside from Frank thought it was that bad of an idea.

It had been settled; they’d picked a weekend, set up times, and planned activities for when Frank and Pete were to spend the night, and subsequently the day, at Gerard and Mikey’s house. Both Frank and Pete had told their parents completely different things (Pete told his mom that he was spending the Sunday at ‘his girlfriend’s’ house, which wasn’t entirely untrue, and Frank told his mom that he and some friends were going on a camping trip. Like Frank would ever camp) to ensure that they wouldn’t be caught lying, packed their shit, and hopped through Pete’s mirror at midnight on Saturday.

Things, overall, weren’t that different from their usual hangouts. Movies were watched, stories were exchanged, and Pete and Mikey were once again disgustingly cute with all the lovey-dovey looks and close cuddling. Gerard always gagged at the sight, but Frank couldn’t help but just want the same thing with Gerard.

It had to be nearing four am when Mikey finally dragged Pete out of the basement without a word, and with that, the two were gone, leaving Gerard and Frank by themselves. Frank was a bit too delirious and sleep-deprived to realize the impacts Pete and Mikey leaving had, until Gerard cleared his throat and stood up from his floor, offering a hand to help Frank up.

“Um,” Gerard mumbled once him and Frank were standing in front of one another. “I don’t have, like, an extra mattress or whatever, so, uh, you can just take my bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.” He said, already starting to pull blankets and pillows from his bed, but still being careful to leave enough for Frank.

At this, Frank finally shook himself back into reality, as his eyes widened. “No! No, it’s fine. Seriously. You don’t have to give up your bed. I can take the floor.” He pushed, but Gerard just looked guilty.

“But I’ll feel bad if you do.” He sighed, halting putting more blankets and pillows on the floor.

Frank paused and looked at Gerard’s bed. Theoretically, there _was_ enough room for two people to sleep on it, but just barely. So, in reality, the two of them could just share it. But there was that teensy, tiny problem of Frank’s- the super major fucking terrible ass crush he had on Gerard, now fully admitted to himself. Knowing himself, he’d end up waking up next to Gerard with a serious case of morning wood, and that would just be the worst thing ever. What if monsters didn’t even have dicks like humans did? What is Frank had to explain what a _boner_ was? God, he was way overthinking this.

So instead of allowing his train of thought to go anywhere else, he sighed, shrugged, and looked back at Gerard. “We could just share your bed, y’know. I don’t mind.”

The look Gerard gave him made Frank’s brain clench, if that made any sense whatsoever. He looked shocked, surprised, and Frank couldn’t help but interpret that as Gerard being weirded out by his suggestion.

But when that pretty pink blush of his spread across his cheeks, Frank couldn’t help but imagine the reality where Gerard liked him back was this one (which he knew it wasn’t, and could never be, for numerous reasons). Gerard nodded and started picking up the blankets and pillows on the ground, tossing them back onto his bed. He sat down on his bed then, patting the space next to him, inviting Frank to sit there as well, smiling warmly at him. Frank sighed and gave in. This was going to be a long night.

With a snap of his fingers, all the lights in Gerard’s room went out with a flourish, except for a tiny, blue table lamp on the farthest corner of his totally crammed desk. Both Gerard and Frank laid back at nearly the same time, turning to face each other. This all seemed very intimate to Frank, and with the way Gerard’s pale skin looked almost translucent in the blue lighting, he couldn’t help himself when he reached up and pushed a lock of Gerard’s dark, dark hair behind his pointed ear. Gerard didn’t move, didn’t react to the action, just continued staring at Frank like he had hung the damn stars in the sky or something. It was becoming terribly misleading.

“Hi.” Frank whispered, almost like he was afraid he was going to break the dark, quiet atmosphere if he didn’t.

“Hi.” Gerard whispered back.

And Frank wanted this so much, wanted it always. Moments like these, where him and Gerard could just be together in the quiet dark and Frank could admire Gerard’s complete and utter beauty, it’s what Frank wanted more than anything. More than another tattoo, more than a dog, more than any material item. He wanted this, and he wanted it to be real.

But, of course, it wasn’t real. Him and Gerard weren’t together, and they never could be, truthfully. Gerard was older - much older (he was turning 26 next year, as he had told Frank in one of their many conversations) - and was from a different world, from a different _reality_. Even if he liked Frank back, which was unlikely in itself, they’d never be able to make it work.

But damn himself if Frank wasn’t willing to try.

“G’night, Frankie.” Gerard hummed, already half asleep. Frank hadn’t realized that he’d been zoned out for so long. He also hadn’t realized that he’d left his hand on Gerard’s cheek, which is why he let it slip off slowly, instead choosing to put it back by his side.

“Goodnight, Gee.” He whispered.

His last thought of the night was one of Gerard, of course, as it had been for many nights before. But now, the subject of his dreams was laying right next to him the whole time. Frank chose not to think about that.

——

The next morning, Frank had two realizations: One, waking up next to Gerard was probably his favorite sight of all time, and two, he was painfully hard.

He shifted in the bed, trying to make the boner in his pants less obvious as he was pressed nearly flush against Gerard’s warm, sleeping body. But, honestly, the shifting just made it worse. Frank groaned, rutting up against as least subtly as he could. Just then, though, Gerard mumbled a little, shifting in his sleep. Frank froze mid-shift, fearing that Gerard was waking up. Which he was.

“Mmh, morning, Frankie.” He sighed sleepily, still looking like he was asleep. Frank looked down at Gerard, wide-eyed and holding his breath. Gerard could probably feel how tense Frank was at that moment.

“Hey, Gee.” He responded, trying to sound as inconspicuous as possible. It probably wasn’t working very much.

Gerard’s eyes opened slowly, immediately gravitating towards Frank’s face. His expression went from totally blank to frowning and concerned. And at that moment, Frank realized that he had been totally found out.

“Are you okay?” Gerard asked, shifting so he could sit up properly.

“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Frank shrugged off, trying to turn away from Gerard and think gross, boner-killing thoughts. But with Gerard right next to him, it was hard for any thought to kill downright painful hard-on he was having.

There was a gentle hand on Frank’s shoulder, tugging him slightly to turn back to Gerard. “Seriously, what’s wrong, Frankie? You look like you’re in pain.”

Well, Frank _was_ in pain, but probably not the kind that Gerard was thinking. Finally, as he was facing the opposite direction of Gerard, Frank shoved a hand down his pants and palmed himself through his boxers. It helped, but only a little. He _really_ needed a bathroom. Or for Gerard to have a change of heart and shove his own hand down Frank’s pants. Either would have worked for Frank.

“Nothing, nothing. Everything is fine. Uh, hey, do you have a bathroom down here?” He finally asked, just barely suppressing a moan. Gerard’s hand was still on his shoulder, and it was making Frank shamefully more hard by the second.

“Uh, yeah,” Gerard hummed, “Over there.” He pointed at a door that Frank had never noticed before. Maybe it hadn’t been there before. Maybe Gerard had hidden it with magic or whatever.

This was not the time to be thinking about that.

Frank scrambled up out of Gerard’s bed, and walked (well, _waddled_. It was the best he could do) over to the door, swinging it open.

As soon as the door was shut and locked behind him, Frank dropped his pants and his underwear, clenching a fist around his dick and shoving one in his mouth to prevent himself from being too loud, thinking of the way Gerard’s warm, soft body felt against his as they slept.

Frank was almost hesitant to leave the bathroom, afraid that Gerard - or the whole house, for that matter - had might have heard something. But when he did, Gerard seemed none the wiser. In fact, he had fallen back asleep. Of course, that didn’t mean the rest of the household hadn’t heard him, but he had walked in on Mikey and Pete making out one too many times- it was the least revenge he could dish out.

He almost didn’t want to wake Gerard up as he crouched down in front of him. He looked so peaceful, so calm, so far away from his constantly-bright, happy personality. While Frank adored that side of Gerard, he liked this side too. But Pete and Mikey were bound to come down into the basement at some point, so there wasn’t much use in leaving him asleep.

“Gee, Gee, _Gerard_ , c’mon. You gotta wake up.” He said softly, shaking Gerard’s shoulder the slightest bit. Gerard huffed a little in his sleep, but eventually, his eyes opened, and he blinked blearily at Frank. “Hey, sleepyhead.” Frank smiled. It was probably a stretch, but after last night, Frank didn’t much care as he reached his hand up and ruffled Gerard’s hair. It was adorably soft.

“Mmhn, sorry.” He said, muffled, as he smushed his face into his pillow one last time before sitting up, bringing a hand up to his hair, messing with it a little. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep again.”

Frank shrugged, standing up and sitting next to Gerard on his bed. “It’s alright. Just get more sleep, dummy.” He joked, bumping Gerard in the shoulder.

“Can’t if you’re here every night, _dummy_.” Gerard smiled back. Frank felt a pang of guilt; he probably  _had_ been keeping Gerard up until all hours of the night, which had never been his intention.

“Sorry about that.” He blushed, looking away from Gerard.

“Aw, don’t worry about it. There’s no one I’d rather spend the night with.”

Before Frank could react to Gerard’s words, he was standing up, taking Frank’s hand and pulling him up as well, saying, “Come on, we should probably go get Mikey and Pete.”

Upstairs, Frank could hear the clatter of dishes and the smell of something that smelled suspiciously like bacon. It smelled so good, it almost made Frank pissed at his body for not letting him eat meat. Gerard froze at the top of the stairs, pressing his ear against the door at the top of the stairwell. After a few moments, he shrugged, looked at Frank, and led him through the door at the top of the stairs. He pressed a finger against his lips, signifying for Frank to be quiet. He complied, and the two tiptoed into the front hall. Well, tiptoeing was a loose term- Gerard’s house creaked like all hell.

“I think my mom is in the kitchen. I can cast a temporary spell to make us float, but you gotta be super careful, alright?” Gerard whispered back at Frank, who nodded vehemently. The last thing Frank wanted was to be heard by either of the Way parents, and if that meant using magic, then so be it. Gerard nodded back, going into a focused, intense mode, looking down at the ground and whispering again in that language that Frank couldn’t understand. Suddenly, a tingling feeling overcame Frank, and when he looked down again, his feet were a solid few inches off the ground. He looked over to Gerard, who was smiling and raising his eyebrows at Frank as if to say _cool, right?_ He grabbed Frank’s hand again, pulling him along, moving somehow. They glided easily through the front hall and past the ornate dining room, before crossing in front of the doorway that lead to the kitchen. Frank looked in, seeing a short woman with a head full of bright, blonde curls, bent over a bowl at the kitchen counter. A cookbook seemed to be floating in front of her face, and the more Frank thought of it, the more he realized how similar the magic in this world was to something out of _Harry Potter_.

They were nearly past the kitchen doorway before Gerard’s mom cleared her throat, suddenly appearing in front of the kitchen doorway. Teleportation, as Frank learned in that moment, was the scariest thing ever.

“Gerard Arthur Way, what do you think you’re doing?” She scolded, quirking an eyebrow. He looked over at her, looking positively afraid, blushing horribly out of being caught. Suddenly, him and Frank fell to the ground, Gerard sticking a much better landing than Frank, who stumbled like a newborn puppy.

“Uh, nothing?” Gerard attempted. Meanwhile, Frank shuffled as quietly as possible behind Gerard, not wanting to be a part of the wrath of Mrs. Way. Her eyebrow quirked even farther up her forehead, if that was even possible.

“I can hear you floating, Gerard. I heard you casting the spell as well.” She defended, as Gerard crumpled even further in on himself. Frank wanted to ask how in the hell she was able to hear them floating around or how she was able to hear Gerard casting the spell, but then he remembered, duh, magic. She probably used some sort of special mom magic as well.

“Oh. Right.”

She then leaned over, looking behind Gerard and at Frank. “Is this the infamous Frank I’ve heard so much about?” She asked. Frank could swore he felt himself begin to shake. She probably knew he was human, since all monsters seemed to know a human when they saw one. What if she wasn’t going to be as kind about it as Ray had been?

Gerard looked back at Frank, then over to his mom. Frank could practically see the wheels in his head turning, trying to come up for a successful alibi as to why there was a human in the Way household.

“Uh, yeah! He certainly is, and is one hundred percent not human. Nope.” He lied. Frank wished he could facepalm then and there, but that’d probably be a bit rude. Gerard was one of the smartest people Frank had ever met, but damn was he an idiot.

“Right. Sure. While you’re busy convincing yourself that I didn’t already know there’s been two humans in and out of my house for the past three or so weeks, I’d like to invite Frank for breakfast.” She smiled, fakely, of course, at Gerard, who looked up at his mom with wide, surprised eyes. Frank was in a similar position. “Well, Frank? How do you feel about pancakes and bacon?” She asked warmly, tilting her head. Frank stepped out from behind Gerard, considering the option. Mrs. Way seemed nice enough, and while he couldn’t eat the bacon, pancakes sounded pretty nice.

“Yes, thank you.” He decided, nodding. Mrs. Way’s smile seemed to grow.

“Of course. I’ve already got Mikey and Pete in there. They’re so cute together, don’t you think?” She asked, beginning already to walk into the kitchen. Frank wasn’t really at liberty to answer the question - she _was_ talking about his best friend and his crush’s brother, after all - but he knew what moms liked to hear, so he nodded and hummed, more excited at the prospect of pancakes when the smell hit him as he walked into the kitchen. Pete and Mikey were too invested in both their food and each other to look at Frank when he walked into the kitchen, but Pete did give Frank a little wave as he walked in.

Gerard, who’d been still standing in the hallway, staring blankly at Frank and his mom as they walked into the kitchen, surprised at his mother’s reaction, walked into the kitchen at that moment, sitting next to Frank.

“I am _so_ sorry.” He said, leaning over to Frank and whispering at him. Frank shrugged.

“I can still hear you, Gerard.” Mrs. Way said, serving both Frank and Gerard pancakes and bacon.

“Oh, I don’t eat meat, Mrs. Way, but thank you.” He stuttered, not wanting to offend her. Would he offend her? He had to make a good impression here, if he was going to date Gerard ever in the future.

But Mrs. Way just laughed, snapped her fingers, and the bacon on Frank’s plate disappeared, returning back to the serving tray she’d brought it out on. “You’re better than the rest of us, then.” She joked, walking back over to the kitchen counter.

“You’re a vegetarian?” Gerard asked. Though, his mouth was already stuffed with pancakes, so it came out a lot more like, “Youwre wa vegitawan?”. It was kind of really adorable. Frank nodded, taking his first bite of his food, which tasted fucking _heavenly_.

The meal was mostly spent in silence, aside from the four boys making chatter every now and then. After he was finished, Frank stood up and took his plate over to the sink, beginning to wash it. Mrs. Way appeared next to him, grabbing the plate from his hands and saying, “You don’t have to do that, Frank. You’re the guest.”

Frank shrugged. His mom had always taught him to be polite, especially when he was spending time at a friend’s house. “It’s really no big deal.”

“Nonsense.” Mrs. Way hummed, scrubbing at the plate. Pete put his plate in the sink, then, and Frank chose to scrub that instead.

“Next time, though,” Mrs. Way muttered, “Try to be more quiet when you’re taking care of morning business, alright? I know I live in a house full of boys, and my hearing is better than most people’s you’ll ever meet, but I didn’t even have to try to hear you.”

Frank thought his face was going to catch on fire with how hard he was blushing.

——

After that weekend, sleepovers at Mikey and Gerard’s became much more common, especially now that all of them knew that the brothers’ parents were cool about the whole “humans-in-our-house” thing. And every time, without fail, Frank ended up sleeping in Gerard’s bed with him. Of course, now, he knew not to take care of the still-embarrassing boners he got whenever they did sleep in the same bed, but yet, he still got them. He was seriously considering finally making a move on Gerard, because he was sure that if he didn’t, his dick was going to fall off.

Despite Pete and Frank spending numerous nights at the Way household, Gerard and Mikey had never come to the human world.

It was deemed early on that bringing Gerard and Mikey over to the human world was probably too risky; monsters weren’t treated the same as they treated humans, and even though the brothers looked closer to humans than most other monsters, there was still that vibe around them that tipped one off to believing that they weren’t quite human, even if they were to just hide their ears and not perform any magic in their time in the human world.

But Gerard had begun whining, pleading, _begging_ , really, for Frank to invite him over one weekend to his house, despite Gerard being one of the first people to be against him and Mikey ever travelling over to the human world.

Frank had said no, at first. It was true that it was entirely too risky, and Frank didn’t even know what he would _do_ if someone were to find out that Gerard wasn’t human while he was over there. But Gerard’s puppy dog eyes and sad, quiet voice nearly drove Frank mad with guilt, so he finally begrudgingly agreed, and that night, him and Gerard went through Mikey’s mirror (which, day by day, was looking slightly more cracked and haggard), and into Pete’s room.

Of course, sneaking out of Pete’s room with one new person that hadn’t been there when Frank got there was no easy task, but it was late, and when they tiptoed past Pete’s parents’ room, the door was shut tightly.

What they did not expect, though, was for Frank’s mom to still be awake and sitting in Frank’s living room, watching tv.

Frank stopped when he saw his mother, causing Gerard to bump into him and make a quiet “Oof.” noise. But he looked over to where Frank was staring, and saw Frank’s mom. Which, in short, caused him to go into a bit of a silent panic.

“What are you doing back from Pete’s house, hun?” She asked, not looking away from the tv.

“Oh, uh,” Frank stuttered, “I wasn’t feeling well.” For added effect, Frank coughed pathetically into his elbow.

That, assumingly, is what caused Mrs. Iero to finally look over at the boys, seeing Gerard in all his pointed-ear and so-obviously-not-human-it-was-tangible-vibe glory.

“Then who’s that?” She asked suspiciously, quirking a single eyebrow. Was that a thing all moms did?

Frank floundered for an answer. “My friend! Yeah, this is my friend, Gerard. I met him at, uhhhhh, the comic book shop! He works there. Right, Gerard?”

Gerard couldn’t bring himself to verbally respond, so he simply nodded frantically, giving Mrs. Iero what he hoped was a convincing smile.

“Uh-huh, right.” Mrs. Iero said, not sounding convinced at all. “And where are you from, Gerard?” She asked, now directly addressing him.

“I’m from, uh, here, y’know? I go to college out of town, though.” He tried. Again, though, Mrs. Iero seemed to not buy it in the slightest.

“Sure. Cool ears, though. Are they fake?”

Gerard and Frank both looked at each other with widened eyes, not thinking this far ahead into the plan. They should have brought a hat, or something, goddammit. They both nodded frantically, though, wanting this to be over with as soon as possible.

“Right, well, just keep the volume down, though, boys. I’ll be heading off to bed.” She said, getting up from the couch and turning the tv off, walking past the shocked expressions of both Gerard and Frank.

“Well your mom is… interesting.” Gerard sputtered out after a good few moments of shockced silence. Frank nodded next to him, finally huffing out a sigh of relief.

“Yeah. I’m just glad we didn’t get caught.”

Gerard spent the night in Frank’s bed that night. Frank actually did have an extra mattress that he pulled out whenever Pete came over, and the two of them could have always spent the night in his basement, where there was a couch and yet another mattress (Frank didn’t know where his mom was getting all these mattresses, but he didn’t question it). But they didn’t. It seemed almost like sleeping in the same bed was a force of habit, now. Definitely not a habit Frank minded. Gerard was a really good cuddler.

The next day, Frank woke up and immediately pillaged around his room for a hat. Gerard and him had talked the night before about what they were going to do the next day, and Frank had offered to take him around town, on the one condition that he hid his ears under a hat. Gerard agreed immediately.

Only problem was that Frank wasn’t even sure he _owned_ any hats.

The last time he remembered wearing one was in third grade when there had been a particularly bad snowstorm, and Frank's mom was afraid his ears were going to freeze off, or something. And that surely wasn’t going to fit on Gerard’s head.

“Frankie..? Whassa matter?” Gerard mumbled from Frank’s bed, finally waking up.

“If we want to go out today,” Frank huffed, pushing aside another box of clothes from his closet that, unfortunately, did not contain any hats, “We have to get you a hat. And I don’t even know if I _own_ any hats.”

Gerard stood up then, striding over to where Frank was crouching and levitated another box off of the shelf in Frank’s closet. He opened it and picked through it, but found nothing. He sat on his knees, thinking a moment, before muttering something under his breath.

“What, are you gonna like, put a locator spell on the single hat in this entire room and call it towards you?” Frank joked, grabbing the box Gerard had pulled down and sorting through it, seeing no hat in sight.

“Precisely.” Gerard said simply, causing Frank to look up at him. Above his hand was a single, grey beanie, floating and making Frank want to pull his hair out.

“God, I can’t believe you.” He grabbed the hat from the levitation spell Gerard had it in and shook it out, seeing lint balls and more than a few layers of dust on it. “Where did you even find this?”

Gerard hummed and shrugged, thinking. “Under your bed, wedged between the bed frame and the radiator.”

“Well, thanks.” Frank said. He leaned towards Gerard and pulled the hat over his hair, making sure it was far enough down that you couldn’t see Gerard’s ears. When he was satisfied with his work he leaned back on his knees, seeing Gerard smiling at him like he knew something Frank didn’t. “What?”

Gerard smiled for a couple more seconds, before shrugging and shaking his head, beginning to stand up. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” He brushed off, offering out a hand for Frank. “C’mon, we’ve got places to be, right?”

Walking around town was fine and dandy and all, especially with how adorable Gerard looked pointing out all of the things that didn’t exist in the monster world that did in the human world (technology, as it seemed, had not advanced quite as rapidly in the monster world. Frank had to spend ten minutes explaining why tvs looked like that when they passed by a technology store), but Frank wanted to show Gerard all of his favorite aspects of living in this world, and traveling around town wasn’t going to let Frank do that.

“You wanna do something else? Aside from, y’know, just walking around town and whatever.” He offered, waving his hands as to gesture that he really had no other plans aside from what they were currently doing, but still did want to do something else. Gerard froze mid-lick from eating his ice cream cone (apparently, ice cream wasn’t a huge thing over in the monster world either, even though Frank didn’t have the damndest clue why. What a sinful, sad existence that probably was), and looked over to Frank, tilting his head to the side.

“Like what?”

Frank shrugged and shoved his hands deeper in his pockets, slouching further down the bench they were sitting on. “I dunno, we could go to the movies, or like,” Suddenly, a flyer on a nearby telephone pole caught Frank’s attention, “Go see a concert.”

“Oh!” Gerard cheered, nearly dropping his ice cream. “I like concerts! Who’s playing?”

Frank looked back at the poster, squinting and trying to read who it was for. “Paramore.”

“Paramore?” Gerard echoed, following Frank’s line of sight.

Frank had heard of Paramore before, of course he had. His whole school had, in fact, especially when Hayley Williams, the junior who fronted the band, went around handing out flyers and free tickets whenever they were playing a show. Frank had never went to one of their shows before, and hadn’t really been interested in going, until, well, now. Hayley and the rest of the group did look kind of intimidating on the poster, which, inherently, was right up Frank’s alley. Except for the fact that Frank knew Hayley, and from the few times he’d talked to her, she was the least intimidating person he’d ever met. Honestly, she was nothing more than five feet and two inches of bubbly, sickeningly-sweet personality.

But it seemed like it was his only option.

“Yeah. Paramore. A girl from my school’s in it.”

Gerard flopped back, looking at his ice cream cone, which was now melting, indignantly. “I’ve never heard a name like that for a performer.”

“What?” Frank said, very confused. “No, no, it’s not just a single performer, it’s a band. The band’s name is Paramore.”

“A band? Like, an instrumental band?”

“No?” Oh, great, now Frank was going to explain the entire concept of bands to Gerard. Not like he really minded, but, still. “It’s like, some people play instruments in it, yeah, but then there’s a singer, whose usually at the head of the band. Sometimes they play an instrument, too, but more often then not, they don’t. But they all work together and create music and perform, and stuff.”

Gerard seemed to understand the answer, no matter how muddled it kind of was, and went back to eating his ice cream (which, by now, was really nothing more than a sad puddle of Oreo cookie swirl inside of a semi-mushy ice cream cone). “Yeah, sure, that sound’s cool. We should go.” And so, it was planned.

The venue Paramore was playing at was one Frank had been to many times, what with it’s giving of alcohol to underage teens without questions and it’s usually free shows, so it was easy enough to get there. Frank, though, was just worried about how Gerard would react. From what he had gathered, there wasn’t really anything like trashy venues and pop punk shows over in the monster world, so this would probably all be a bit intimidating for him.

But by the time they got into the venue, Frank had snagged himself a cheap beer or two (he wasn’t planning to drink much, he had to keep an eye on Gerard, after all), and were pressed up against the barricade (more of their own volition, the place wasn’t really very crowded despite there being only a few minutes or so ‘till showtime), Gerard looked like he had never been happier in his entire fucking life.

“This is _so_ cool.” Gerard would hiss over to Frank every few minutes, despite the band not even being out on stage yet. “Why can’t we have stuff like this over in my world?”

Frank would just shrug, though, and take a sip of his beer. “It’s a damn shame you don’t.”

Finally, after only a few minutes of waiting, the lights died and the filler music cut off, as the drummer for the band came out on stage first and took his spot behind the kit. Gerard started bouncing up and down on his toes, muttering, “Oh my gosh” over and over again, looking more happy than Frank had ever seen him.

The show, all things considered, was surprisingly good. Their music wasn’t what Frank normally listened too - a bit too pop-ish on the pop punk spectrum for him - but it was still good, and damn, did Hayley have a voice.

But the best part of it all was seeing Gerard.

By the small break the band had halfway through the show, Gerard was practically glowing. Okay, yes, half of that was from sweat, but the other half was from pure joy and it was so beautiful Frank kind of wanted to cry a little. Gerard was usually very happy, but here, he looked overjoyed. Completely in his element.

“Oh my gosh, Frankie! This is like, the most fun I’ve ever had. Seriously.” And oh, Frank could definitely tell, but he just nodded and hummed in agreement, before the band came back on stage.

“Sorry about that, folks. Our guitarist isn’t feeling the best tonight, so we might have to cut the show a little short, here.” Hayley said apologetically, adjusting the microphone a little. When Frank looked over to Gerard, it was like he could see Gerard physically deflate. But then, suddenly, he rose back up again and had a very specific look on his face, one that Frank had learned was the face of him getting an idea.

“Gee…” He trailed off, but it was already too late. Gerard looked directly at the guitarist as he sat on an amp tucked behind most of the other equipment, and began whispering under his breath. Almost immediately, the guitarist looked like he was physically getting better, if not shaking off a strange, tingly sensation that had overcome him in that moment. Gerard turned to look back at Frank, who was giving him the stink eye.

“What! I was helping him!” He defended, putting his hands up as far as he could in defense while in the middle of a crowd.

Frank just shook his head and laughed, bumping Gerard in the shoulder. “When we get caught, it’s your fault.” Frank argued, while Gerard just humphed, fixing his hat before crossing his arms.

After talking to the newly-well guitarist for a few moments, Hayley approached the mic again and tapped it a couple times, gaining the attention of the people in the room. “Uh, so I’ve just been told that our guitarist is feeling better now, so, I guess, on with the show!” She held up her arms in excitement as the audience cheered, Gerard loudest of them all. “This next one is called ‘Still Into You’.”

The song was definitely more poppy than their other works, but it had a bouncy vibe to it, allowing Frank to dance around like an idiot a little, which was always fun. At some point during the song, Frank looked back over to Gerard, who looked, again, like he was having the time of his life.

And with the lovey-dovey lyrics of the song, and the way Gerard looked, and how his head was just the smallest bit foggy from the beer, Frank got hit with the overwhelming urge to kiss Gerard.

In any other situation, he probably wouldn’t have. But right now, it was almost like Frank couldn’t resist it any longer. Weeks and weeks spent with Gerard, learning every little detail about him and falling hopelessly deeper and deeper into what started out as a stupid, simple, middle school-esque crush, all built up into that moment, and finally made Frank explode.

So what did he do? Well, it was simple, really; He shouted “Hey Gee!” Over the crowd and the blasting music, grabbed Gerard’s face in his hands when he was finally turned to look at Frank, and kissed the ever-loving shit out of him.

 ——

When Gerard first didn’t react, Frank chocked it up to shock. He  _had_ kind of just randomly pulled Gerard away from being really into the music just so he could kiss him, so it was understandable.

But when Gerard still hadn’t kissed back, Frank knew it had to be something else.

He pulled away, a bit reluctantly, and looked at Gerard, who was staring at Frank with nothing more than a shocked expression. “Gee..?” He muttered, a bit hopelessly. Gerard didn’t respond. “I’m sorry, I- I shouldn't have done that. I’m really sorry.” In the moment, Frank wasn’t thinking when he began pushing his way through the crowd, leaving Gerard behind in the crowd. He to get out of there, away from Gerard.

The cold air felt nothing short of blissful when Frank got outside, cooling that stupid blush in his cheeks. And as his face grew colder, he could feel the tear tracks on his cheeks. He hadn’t even _realized_ he was crying. God, he was pathetic. He pushed his hand into his back pocket, digging around for his cigarettes and his lighter, both of which he found. He put a cigarette into his mouth and lit it, instantly feeling a little better. Warmer, at least.

And then, Gerard burst through the venue’s doors, frantically looking around for Frank.

“Frank? Frankie?” He called, finally spotting Frank standing by the doors. He jogged over, instantly pulling Frank into him and kissing him, the cigarette falling out of Frank’s mouth. Frank moved away quickly, though, all of this being a bit too sudden for him.

“What?” Frank asked. Gerard looked at him in a similar way that Frank had probably looked at him. Scared. Upset. But he was still holding onto Frank’s face.

“I’m sorry, Frankie. I was just surprised.” He looked down at their feet, probably too scared to look directly at Frank. “I’ve never been kissed by anyone before.” He mumbled.

The admission totally shocked Frank, because, well, _fuck_. Gerard was literally the most beautiful person Frank had ever seen. How had he not kissed, like, hundreds of people by now? “How in the _fuck_?” He uttered, which earned a giggle from Gerard, who was now swiping his thumbs softly over Frank’s cheeks. He shrugged.

“I dunno, but I’d really like to do it again.” He smiled, looking at Frank sheepishly. And well, Frank couldn’t disagree with that.

“Gladly.” He said, before leaning up again and planting his lips on Gerard.

The kiss was a little sloppy, but it was okay, because it was _Gerard_. The same Gerard who Frank thought he’d never be able to have this with, the same Gerard he’d had the best dreams ever imaginable about, the same Gerard he’d fallen for harder than he’d ever fallen for anyone before. The same Gerard who had amazingly sweet, soft lips that kissed like he’d been born to do it.

Eventually, the need for air separated them, and Gerard couldn’t help but giggle again, loving literally every moment of this. He brushed his thumbs over Frank’s cheeks again, finally noticing the strange wetness under his thumbs

“Are you _crying_?” He laughed, nudging his forehead against Frank’s. Frank laughed too, even though he was sort of embarrassed.

“I might have been.” He sniffed, reaching up and wiping the tears off of his cheeks, before leaving his hands to rest on Gerard’s wrists, grabbing them and rubbing his thumbs over the inside of his arms.

“Aw, Frankie…” Gerard hummed. He leaned forward a little, kissing Frank’s cheeks.

The two couldn’t help but stay silent for a few moments, listening to the sounds of the band inside the venue, people and cars going past, and the sound of each other breathing. Frank’s cheeks felt soft under Gerard’s thumbs, and when Frank moved his hands from Gerard’s arms to thread his fingers through Gerard’s hair, it felt exactly the same.

“I never thought I would get this.” Frank mumbled after a while.

“Hm?”

“Y’know, this. I never thought you’d like me back. I never thought we’d be together like this. I mean, we’re from different worlds, Gerard. I didn’t think we’d ever even get this.”

Gerard sighed, shifting around until he was a bit farther away from Frank so he could look at him properly. “We are from totally different worlds, aren’t we?” He huffed.

Frank nodded. “But I don’t care anymore. I don’t give two  _shits_. I would do anything to see you, Gerard. I would give the fucking world.”

Gerard looked like he was about to spontaneously combust with how flustered he was. But, somehow, he was able to stutter out a response. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Frank nodded.

“Me too, Frankie. I would too.”

The peaceful, quiet moment was broken when the venue doors burst open, and people began filing out, not even looking at Gerard and Frank. Who, surprised by the sudden interruption, clinged onto each other. They laughed, though, feeling stupid by being surprised by something as silly as that. Hayley and her bandmates walked out after the crowd had thinned, laughing with one another, when Hayley looked over and spotted Frank and Gerard. Frank groaned a bit, hiding his face in Gerard’s neck, who laughed at Frank’s shyness. Frank, despite only talking to Hayley a handful of times, knew that once you started talking to her, it’d be a while until you stopped. Gerard was the same way, of course, but Frank liked Gerard. A lot. More than Hayley.

“Oh, hey! Frank, right?” She said when she approached them, sipping from whatever girly-looking cocktail she had in her hand. Frank groaned quietly one last time into Gerard’s neck, before moving away and giving Hayley an only-sort-of-fake smile.

“Yeah, hey Hayley.” He muttered.

“Who’s this?” She smiled, gesturing over at Gerard, who held out his hand for her to shake, which she did gladly and enthusiastically.

“I’m Gerard. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too! Did you guys enjoy the show?”

Gerard nodded enthusiastically, while all Frank could manage truthfully was a little, yet not un-polite shrug. “Of course! You’re an amazing singer.”

“Aw, thank you!” Hayley hummed, tilting her head to the side. “Those ears are real, right? I know how extreme some people take body mods, but those don’t look fake to me. You’re an elf, yeah?”

Both Frank and Gerard blanched, totally and definitely not expecting that. How the  _fuck_ did Hayley know? And where the _fuck_ did Gerard’s beanie go?

“Uh,” Frank and Gerard muttered at the same time.

“What?” Frank asked.

“Y’know, is he an elf?”

“How do you even know about that?” Frank said defensively, beginning to nudge Gerard behind him. For all they knew, Hayley had bad intentions.

“I’m a witch! My parents came over here through a doorway before I was even born, and they’re both witches. So, of course, I am too. Duh.” She laughed, tapping her head as to physically symbolize her “Duh” sound.

“People do that?” Gerard asked, stepping out from behind Frank.

“All the time! Of course, it’s mostly witches and sometimes elves who do it, since they’re the species that look closest to humans and actually have the magical abilities to open doorways, and, well, fake paperwork and stuff to be able to integrate into society and all that boring stuff, but people totally do it all the time. There’s a whole faction of witches from the monster world that me and my parents are involved in.” Hayley explained, leaving Gerard looking completely dumbfounded and kind of in awe.

“Woah.” Frank muttered.

“Exactly. Pretty cool, right?”

“Really cool! I had no idea people did that.” He didn’t say it, but Frank could hear the unspoken “I kind of wish I could, too.” in Gerard’s voice. It bothered Frank, just the littlest bit, but he didn’t want to think about why.

“I assume you’re here through a doorway, then?” Hayley asked Gerard, who nodded. “Well then, you two have only got limited time together! What are you still doing here? Go! Suck each other off, or something!” Hayley laughed, pushing at Gerard and Frank’s shoulders. By now, the both of them were blushing furiously at Hayley’s direct nature, but still hurried off.

“Bye Hayley! Thank you for the show!” Gerard called back while him and Frank were still walking away, turning around and waving at her.

“Anytime! Have fun you two! And use protection!”

——

Getting home, in short, was  _ torture _ . Regrettably, Frank hadn’t taken his car into town, so him and Gerard were there forced to walk back to Frank’s house. Of course, Frank could have just called his mom and asked her to pick them up, but that would mean having to pretend that both him and Gerard weren’t really fucking horny right now, and Frank didn’t think he’d be able to do that. He didn’t want to have that in front of his mom, at least. And he was sure Gerard wouldn't want to do that either. 

So they walked back to Frank’s house, always touching each other in one way or another; Frank with his arm around Gerard’s soft waist, holding each other’s hands, Gerard with his arm around Frank’s shoulder, etc. Whatever it was, Frank was sure that if he wasn’t touching Gerard in some way, he was going to combust. And it seemed that Gerard felt the same. 

Finally, they stumbled their way into Frank’s house, narrowly avoiding Frank’s mom seeing them practically attached at the hip. They managed to get upstairs and into Frank’s room in one piece, just barely, before Frank was practically slamming the door shut and pressing Gerard up against it, attaching his mouth to the taller’s immediately.

Things progressed quickly, like both of them kind of sort of predicted, and before either of them realized it, they were on Frank's bed and Frank was half-naked.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Gerard paused as Frank began lifting up his shirt. Frank froze immediately and let the fabric drop from his hands.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Gerard huffed, feeling self-conscious and embarrassed. There was no need for him to be causing a scene, he should have just let whatever was about to happen, happen. “It’s stupid.” He huffed.

“Hey, it’s not stupid. If you’re uncomfortable, we can stop.” Frank said gently, running a hand up and down Gerard’s arm in what he hoped was a comforting way.

“I don’t want to, though. It’s really stupid, I promise. Let’s just keep going.”

But Frank just shook his head and stood his ground. “Nope. If you’re not completely, one-hundred percent comfortable with this, then I don’t want to keep going. Spill.” He commanded.

“I just- I’m insecure, alright? There’s a reason I’ve never been kissed by anyone or that I’ve never lost my virginity. I’m ugly. I’m fat.” He seemed so nonchalant about it, like not ever being intimate with anyone truly didn’t bother him. But Frank could tell, could see beneath the layers of denial and cover-ups that, yeah, it really did bother Gerard. “I still don’t understand why you like me, Frank. You could do so much better.” 

“What if I don’t want to do better, hm?” He asked, causing Gerard to look up at him. “What if, to me, you’re already as good as it gets? What if you’re already perfect in my eyes?”

“You’re just saying that, Frankie.”

“Oh, but I’m not.” He hummed, leaning down and smushing his face against Gerard’s neck he kissed him, causing the other to laugh that pretty little giggle of his. 

“If you’re sure. Can we keep going?” Gerard said after his laughter died out, pushing at Frank’s shoulders so he could see his face. Frank thought for a moment but nodded, kissing Gerard one last time.

“Of course.”

The rest of the night was a blur to Frank, but in the best way possible. He remembered Gerard’s soft, pudgy belly and the way he grabbed Gerard’s hips just a  _ little too tightly _ while Gerard rode him, because they were just that soft and squishy and fucking adorable. He remembered the salty-sweet taste of Gerard’s skin under his lips, and he remembered the way he and Gerard curled up in a tangle of limbs after they were both spent. But, truthfully, everything else was kind of blurry to Frank. And he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

——

The last thing Frank or Gerard expected when they returned to the monster world was to find Mikey in a frenzy, looking like he was about to cry.

“Mikes? What happened? What’s wrong?” Gerard asked the minute he got through the mirror and saw his younger brother panicking.

“Oh, god, Gee, I fucked up. I really fucked up.” He mumbled, immediately going over and hugging Gerard. Gerard hugged back, wrapping his arms tightly around Mikey’s shaking frame.

“What’s wrong, Mikey?” Frank asked as he approached the two brothers. Mikey looked at Frank fearfully but didn’t say a word. He began shaking harder.

“I swear, Frank, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, I just- We tried to stop him but he still went with that fucking  _ creep _ and then we lost him and we tried to find him but there were so many people and it was so dark and no one could get a good scent of him with so many people and then-” He rushed. 

“Woah, woah, slow down, Mikey. What happened?” Gerard soothed. Mikey looked up at his brother and took a deep breath, standing up and fixing his glasses. He looked pointedly at Frank and shook his head.

“It’s probably better if I just showed you.”

Slowly, he led the two out of his room and through the Way’s house, down to Gerard’s room in the basement, where the lights are dimmed and hushed voices could be heard whispering, voices that stopped the minute they heard creaking on the steps. Three figures could be seen crowding around Gerard’s bed, where Pete’s pallid frame was laying, motionless.

“Oh, shit.” Frank whispered, immediately running over to the bed and kneeling down. “Pete? Pete?” He tried. Pete didn’t respond.

“He’s not gonna wake up anytime soon. The process takes a long time, and it’s better for him to be asleep through it.” Someone said next to Frank. 

“What process? What  _ fucking  _ process?”

“He got bit, Frank. He’s a vampire now.” Mikey said, crossing the room.

Frank’s stomach dropped. Now that he looked at it, he could see the small puncture wounds on the side of Pete’s neck. Pete shifted in his sleep, moaning a little in pain. 

“How did this even happen?” Gerard asked.

“We were out at a club. Some guy kept hitting on Pete, and Mikey tried to intervene, but Pete got really drunk, and he wandered off, and the guy who was hitting on him must’ve met up with him or something. Next thing any of us knew the guy came back and Pete was passed out on his shoulder, two new holes in his neck.” One of the guys crowding around the bed said.

“Fuck. There’s no way to reverse this?” Frank asked desperately.

“There’s not. I’m sorry.” Another one of the people, a vampire, now that Frank looked, said.

“Shit. Shit, shit shit.” He repeated, running a hand through his hair. What was he going to tell Pete’s parents?

“It’s okay, Frankie, we’ll figure this out, alright?” Gerard said, coming up behind Frank and putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

——

Going back to the Wentz’s house an hour later was the last thing on earth Frank wanted to do.

They’d come up with a convincing story for Frank to tell Pete’s parents once Mr. and Mrs. Wentz realized their son was gone, but that didn’t make Frank feel any better about the situation. He’d probably mess the story up in one way or another anyway. His brain had been foggy ever since he saw the two puncture wounds in his best friend’s neck.

Pete could never come back to the human world. He might be able to come back to his parents at some point, to visit them, but he’d never be able to live with them again. Vampires, unfortunately, still needed to drink blood, like in human myths and legends. And that would be hard to hide from the rest of the world. Frank trusted Pete with Gerard and Mikey, of course, and after getting to know them better, he trusted Patrick, Andy, and Joe (the vampires who had been with Mikey and Pete the night Pete had been turned) well enough to let them explain to Pete what had happened, and what his future would be like from there. 

Frank didn’t go back to the monster world for a few days after, despite a doorway opening in his mirror every night now instead of Pete’s at twelve am sharp. He took off of school, too, and after seeing his morose, depressed state, his mom let him. “But only until Thursday.” She had said to Frank, even though he skipped Friday, too.

But by Saturday night, he was ready to go back to the other world.

Immediately upon going through his mirror, he was tackled to the ground by Pete on the other side, who was hugging Frank tightly and muttering, “You fucking idiot.”

“You’re alive.” Frank muttered, hugging Pete back. Pete pulled back and shrugged at Frank, smiling.

“Well, not technically. Where the fuck were you?”

Frank sat up, pushing Pete gently off of him. “I had to think for a little while. You can’t come back, Pete. I had to think about what I’m gonna have to say to our friends, to my mom, to  _ your _ mom. It’s a lot to take in, Pete.”

“I know. I can’t ever go back.” Pete sighed, his mood deflating. “But I have a new life here. I don’t know what it is, man, but I’m already happier over here. Mrs. Way said I can stay here as long as I need to, and fuck, dude, I have  _ Mikey _ . He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Frank.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Is it bad that I don’t regret what happened?”

Frank blanched, yet mulled over the question. But finally, he shook his head. “No, it’s not. I don’t think I’d regret it, either.”

Pete smiled and hugged Frank tightly again. When he pulled back, his smile widened and he pointed at his sharp, new k-9’s. “Plus, dude. Look how cool my teeth are now!”

After talking with Pete a little more, Frank made his way down into the basement, where he could see Gerard drawing at his desk. He turned around in his chair the minute he heard the familiar creak of the stairs.

“Frankie!” He said in a surprised tone, immediately standing up and rushing over to Frank, trapping him in a bone-crushing hug.

“Anymore hugging and I think my lungs are gonna give out.” He joked. Yet still he hugged Gerard back, squeezing just as tightly as Gerard was. Gerard laughed and kissed the side of Frank’s head, burying his face in the shorter’s neck.

“Tell me next time you’re gonna drop of the radar for a week, okay?” He hummed. Frank nodded the best he could.

“I will, I promise.”

The two sat on Gerard’s bed, sitting back on the pillows and wrapping themselves around each other.

“What if you stayed here too, Frank?” Gerard asked quietly after some time.

“Hm?” Frank hummed in question.

“Like,” Gerard shifted, trying to get a better look at Frank, “What if you lived here too? Left the other world behind? There are ways to make you a monster too, that aren’t turning you into a vampire.”   


Frank sighed, pointedly not looking at Gerard. “Gee, I can’t. I still have to be with my mom. I’m all she’s got left. And I have to finish up school, and I’ve got friends and-” He stopped, seeing the defeated look on Gerard’s face. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Gerard huffed. “I get it. I couldn’t leave Mikey behind, no matter how much I wanted something. I understand.”

They went quiet again, and after a while, Frank thought that Gerard fell asleep.

“After I graduate,” He said, mostly to what he thought was himself.

“Hm?” Gerard hummed sleepily from Frank’s chest.

“After I graduate, I’ll come live here. We can get me turned into a true monster ‘n everything.”

Gerard shifted around and smiled up at Frank, kissing him lightly. “Okay.” He paused, but only for a second. “I love you.”

Frank didn’t even hesitate. “I love you too.”

——

Frank, like he said, didn’t stay in the monster world any longer than usual. He spent the rest of the night with Gerard, and then left at one am.

After that, he still returned, of course, nearly every chance he could. He and Gerard still were together, and more in love than ever. Some weekends, he would spend the entire weekend there, returning back to his world as late as he possibly could Sunday night. Each time he travelled back to his world, he wanted to stay in the monster world more and more. Only a few more months until he could move in with Gerard permanently.

Pete’s parents, and eventually the police, questioned Frank about Pete’s disappearance, and after consideration, it was ruled that Pete ran away. Pete, Frank, and pretty much everyone else agreed that it was probably safest if Pete waited at least a year or so until he returned to his parents. 

It was difficult, having to talk to his best friend and his boyfriend in random intervals of days, for only an hour each at a time. But, Frank reasoned, it was better than nothing. He loved Gerard, especially, enough to do pretty much anything for him, anyway.

Plus, it was only a few more months he had to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! if you liked this feel free to leave a kudos and a comment, or if you saw grammatical or spelling errors, lemme know!! until next time, au revoir! (and don't worry kiddos, i'm writing a sequel/epilogue of sorts for this. i wouldn't leave you hangin' like that!)


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